Why Going Upside Down in Yoga Helps Your Heart
Guest post provided my yoga teacher Meera Watts.
Turning yourself upside-down contradicts your physical nature. However, if you closely study inversion yoga, you’ll realize that inverting yourself has a handful of benefits, particularly to your heart.
If you’re interested to know what those benefits are, here are some of inversion yoga’s positive effects on the heart.
Your Blood Flow
Anatomically speaking, your heart can be found in your chest cavity. It functions to pump oxygenated blood to the different parts of your body by way of your arteries. At the same time, it receives deoxygenated blood which carries waste products through your veins.
Now, because the heart is placed high up in your body when you’re standing up, problems happen with your de-oxygenated blood flowing back to the heart due to gravity’s force. And if those problems aren’t solved right away, you can end up suffering different health consequences. Some examples include swollen legs and feet, varicose veins, and even pulmonary embolism.
Positioning yourself upside down can help improve the flow of blood back to the heart. Also, it can improve perfusion of your blood across your lung’s surface area.
Your Breathing and Diaphragm
Just beneath your lungs and heart lies your diaphragm. It’s a large muscle that’s mainly responsible for breathing. And just like the other muscles in your body, you need to work it to make it stronger.
When your diaphragm contracts, it’s generally working with gravity. It’s the reason why you can feel and see your belly bulging when you’re breathing in.
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Laughter Yoga Makes You Happy and Healthy
Laughter Yoga that started 2 decades ago in Mumbai by Dr. Madan Kataria is now famous all around the world. Today there are 10,000 laughter clubs in 76 countries working to spread laughter everywhere. In 2015, laughter yoga turned 20 and thousands of people participated in the celebrations.
Whether you’re faking a laugh or really laughing, the mental and physiological effects are the same. This is the principle on which the laughter yoga works.
- There are no jokes to make the participants laugh. They are only asked to connect with their inner happiness.
- There are some joyful laughing practices and yogic breathing.
- The participants wake their inner child and have fun with one another.
- Laughter Yoga is medically and scientifically approved.
- Big companies practice laughter therapy to keep their workers healthy both mentally and physically.
