MARCH 28, 2011

Head Rush Or Dizziness At Yoga

Posted by Dorothy under Community Interests, Wellness3 comments

While staying in uttanasana, you initially feel all the blood flowing into your head, warming up your face and ears, resulting in a hot tingly feeling and then after a while, a sense of relaxation. On some days, when you inhale while lifting your head to fully stand up, you feel slightly off balance and dizziness. This is a common feeling of head rush.

What happens while lifting your head to fully stand is that the blood tends to rush suddenly away from the head, resulting in a sudden change of pressure from high to low. Whilst this scenario is commonly known as a head rush, for some it may be due to a medical reason of low blood pressure or hypotension. Hypotension is a measure of diastolic pressure* of less than 60 mmHG.

Therefore, if one suffers head rush in Uttanasana, do not lift to stand immediately, but lift yourself into Ardha Uttanasana and stay for a few breaths before fully standing up. Whereas for a person with hypotension, do not drop your head to look towards your legs, instead look to the ground, then release into Ardha Uttanasana before standing up.

On the other hand, a person with hypotension needs to increase their blood pressure by increasing their heart beat or making their heart work harder. The few ways to do that is to do some cardio exercises, have a more dynamic yoga practice and to practice more inversions ( get used to the passive poses first ).

*Diastolic pressure: pressure in arteries during dilation

**Our next 4N 5D Langkawi Yoga And Nature Retreat: 7 – 11  April 2011

**Our next 2N 3D Langkawi Yoga And Nature Retreat: 8 – 10 April 2011

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