You must have heard about Sirsasana and its health benefits, but before you start practicing the same, I strongly recommend you learn about them in more details. Yes, headstand yoga pose is comes under advance poses and you must perform the same under expert guidance. Apart from this, you must also understand some risk factors associated with it and hence, we strongly recommend you to practice headstand pose under expert’s guidance.
Yoga is said as an ancient way to heal many sorts of disease without applying any medicine or any outside forces. The healing property always makes Yoga as a most trusted form of exercise. Yoga is not just limited with one or two poses but it has many poses and each yoga pose has it’s own benefits. In this article, we will share 11 best health benefits of headstand (Sirsasana) yoga pose which is also known as King of all asanas in Yoga practice. But before we start, let me briefly explain what is Sirsasana?
What is Headstand Yoga (Sirsasana) ?
Headstand is one of the most beneficial Yoga posture that offers several health benefits. This pose can also be called as Sirsasana in Sanskrit language and widely known in India. This yoga pose is just like a fun party trick, but it has immense health benefits. There are several benefits of the headstand, but it must be performed in a specified manner. You should perform this posture under the guidance of an expert as it will only benefit, when you perform headstand properly and safely. Bad posture can result in serious head injury and hence, avoid practicing the same if you are not trained to practice headstand yoga pose.
Things to care before you practice headstand Yoga:
If you are suffering from any neck or back issue, then you should avoid this posture till you do not recover from it. If you are on the moon cycle or pregnant, then consult your yoga teacher / doctor before practicing the same.
11 benefits of practicing Headstand Yoga Pose:
Now you are very much familiar with headstand and its time to share the benefits of practicing the same.
#1 Provides Great relaxation from Stress
Headstand is considered as a good stress reliever. With this pose you will be able to understand about how to deal with anxiety, stress, fear or any other worrisome thoughts. This posture is also known as cooling posture. So, if you are stressed, then perform this posture. The combination of long and slow breathing under this posture is a good recipe for the stress relief.
#2 Helps to Increase Focus
In headstand yoga pose, you need to turn upside down that increases the flow of blood in your brain. This improves the function of the brain and increases the sense to focus. This posture helps in reducing the feeling of fear or worry and improves your ability to keep your mind sharp and active.
#3 Helps to increase Flow of Blood to the Head and Scalp
Sirsasana leads to optimize the flow of nutrients in your head and scalp. It is an awesome posture to supply extra nutrients and oxygen to your scalp. It improves the delivery of nutrients to your hair follicles. A regular headstand practice will give you a more luscious head of hair.
#4 Helps in Strengthening Shoulders And Arms
Headstand increases the upper body strength and muscular stamina. In this headstand posture, you hold yourself up and to keep the pressure off of your head and neck, you should push yourself down towards the ground with the forearms by using your arms, shoulders and back strength.
#5 Helps to Improve Digestion
Practicing Sirsasan can helps to remove the stuck material from your body and improve the flow of blood to all the important digestive organs. It increases the absorption of the nutrient and deliver to your cells.
#6 Helps to clear the Adrenal Glands
In the headstand posture, you need to go upside-down that will squeeze your adrenal glands. These glands are liable for the creation of stress hormones in our body. So, as much as cleaner the adrenal glands, more effectively they will work.
#7 Helps in developing the Blood Flow to the Eyes
In the position of flip over, extra oxygen and nutrient rich blood are transferred to the head. This leads to more flow of blood to your eyes and prevent the macular degeneration as well as other eye problems.
#8 Helps to decrease the Fluid Build-Up in Legs, Ankles and Feet
The extra built up water of the legs will be clear out by the reversing effect of the gravity on the bodily fluids. It also relieves from the uncomfortable situation of the Edema. Edema in the legs will not work properly, if you have to spend long hours on your feet.
#9 Helps in developing the Strength in the Core Muscles
In this headstand pose, you need to hold your legs up and make a balance for performing this pose which highly depends on your core strength. So, it is essential to have a strong core that makes you more durable and you will be less prone to the various injuries, that’s why this pose is considered as a major core workout.
#10 It stimulates the Lymphatic System
The lymph system is considered as a garbage dump system because the network of nodes and fluids help to eliminate the waste products from your blood. In this pose, while you flip onto your head, it will directly stimulate your lymphatic system and thus it will help to remove the toxins from your body.
#11 Help to Reduce Hair Fall
If you have hair problems like hair fall and greying hair then this headstand yoga will help you a lot. Doing headstand pose increases the blood circulation in the scalp which maintains the natural growth of hair and prevent greying hair
How to do Headstand – Steps and Preparation [Video Guide]
As explained earlier, this is advance yoga pose and you will require expert trainer to start practicing the same. In this video, you can see how one is performing Sirsasana under yoga teacher?
Sirsasana requires a lot of practice and strength so it would be better that not to perform on the first day of practicing Yoga. It is a great posture, serves several benefits, but it must be performed in a right way.
Image Courtesy: Flickr/Maureen, Sarah Siblik, imlsdcc
good one
This is bloody terrible way to teach someone to go into headstand! Dangerous stuff, and as a certified Iyengar yoga teacher I would advise anyone to stay well away from this sort of stuff!!!!!! Don’t get me wrong headstand is not the problem, the problem is that who ever teaches this on the video has got no idea! She talks about alignment, well where is it?
Thank you very much Heidi for sharing your concern and we also tells our readers not to practice Headstand yoga pose without yoga teacher’s guidance. Can you share any other video which you like and demonstrate better instructions?
I have watched so many other instructions for doing a head stand by so called yoga gurus which got me nowhere. Today I tried doing the headstand following the instructions in this video and I was able to do it right away the first time, I am really thrilled. At least for me, she just made a very difficult pose easy. Don’t know about others, I can only speak for myself.
Thank you for your feedback Sri and happy to know that you liked the video which helped you to practice headstand yoga pose. Have a healthy life
we must practice it for pure ,happiest life
That is very true but headstands yoga pose is for experience practitioner and we strongly recommend learning basic yoga poses before you try Sirsasana.
I love doing headstond. I am practicing since last couple of years. I am able to do headstand upto 30 minutes. The more the duration, the more I feel energetic throughout the day. It has cured my stomach related issues. The statements in the article are quite correct.
Thank you very much Tripathi ji for your feedback and we pleased to learn that you are regularly practicing Headstands for upto 30 minutes. Which is really impressive. Do share your photographs practicing headstands.