Positive Effects of Meditating While Inverting On an Inversion Table
Most people in today’s world can understand and accept that an unsettled state of mind can greatly influence the chemical balance and the physical functioning of the spine. If your mind is disturbed by a constant flow of negative feelings, it causes an imbalance in not just the back region, but the entire body. Some refer such imbalance as a state of disease.
Negative mental habits such as anxiety, worry and resentment can also lead to constraint in the flow of vital energy, which then manifests in the form of various physical symptoms, and they can be as damaging to our backs as any chemical toxin. Inversion therapy has been proven to be highly effective in treating the source of these psychic disturbances by bringing balance back to the spinal region.
Ailments such as migraine headaches, anxiety attacks, sinus problems, asthma, and cardiac arrhythmias can also be helped by the regular deep breathing exercises which can be easily executed while you are comfortably strapped on an inversion table, which help to increase air flow through constricted passages.
In addition, regular practice and relaxation techniques on the inversion table lower levels of stress hormones in the body while improving self-discipline and sports performance, building confidence, increasing energy and efficiency, and creating a more positive outlook.
And positive people, we all know, get sick less often and generally live longer and happier lives. Inversion therapy also helps regulate blood pressure, stimulates circulation, alleviates pain and reduces muscular tension. It’s not hard to spot people who practice exercising and stretching on inversion table regularly—they just look better and fitter.
Anybody Can Meditate While Inverting
Thousands of American adults with back problems say they practice a combination of meditation and inversion therapy, and more and more doctors recommend it as a way to prevent or at least control the pain of chronic back afflictions. Inversion table therapy and meditation also helps restore balance to those suffering from depression, hyperactivity, or attention deficit disorder (ADD). And after years of research, scientific studies are now beginning to show that it really does work.
In the 1990s, Professor Timothy Hunter of one of the top universities in the United States and Dr. Shane Wallace, a cardiologist, confirmed studies that proved meditation while strapped to an inversion table has a profound physiological effect on the body—more than just sleeping or simply relaxing and decompressing your spine. When you are in a meditative state while performing inversion therapy, you inhale 17 percent less oxygen and 17 percent less carbon dioxide than in conventional relaxation techniques.
Blood pressure and heart rate are significantly less, and lactic acid remains at a low level for a long time after practicing. (Lactic acid is an indicator of stress levels and is associated with the flight-or-fight response.) A few years later, a highly accomplished psychiatry professor Dr. Brian Hutton proved that meditation while inverting on an inversion table helps produce more theta waves in the brain—the kind of waves that dominate the brain during periods of deep relaxation.
During the same period, two Japanese researchers concurred, proving that during meditation, the brain patterns of Zen monks corresponded to the low theta frequency usually associated with sleep even though the monks were wide awake and, in fact, in a heightened state of awareness.
It was also discovered that regular practice of meditation while inverting could be used to control physiological functions such as heart rate and body temperature, which eventually led to the development of biofeedback—the alternative method that uses ancient meditation techniques to help patients learn to relieve pain and stress, especially in the spinal region.
Easing Pain with Meditational Inversion Therapy
Living with pain, especially chronic back pain can overtake your life. Almost every decision you make on any given day depends on how bad the pain is at that time. The stress can be overwhelming, and as a result, life becomes difficult. Meditation and inversion therapy practice can help you to deal with debilitating back pain in many ways.
Try this simple technique: Lie down on your inversion table and make yourself comfortable. You might want to place a really small pillow or a cushion underneath your knees for a much more comfortable experience.
Rotate the table to your most comfortable inversion angle, close your eyes and focus on your breath for a few moments until you start to feel more relaxed. Slowly allow your awareness move into your body and acknowledge the area that is experiencing pain. Try to watch the pain as if you were an outside observer.
Begin to give the pain shape and color. Allow the color to become brighter or deeper in hue, and then allow the shape to change. If the pain lessens or becomes more intense, imagine the shape and color changing along with it.
As you continue to watch the pain, imagine it floating out of your body and hanging outside of you so that you can see it more easily. Do not let your mind get involved with the pain, but do explore it and become acquainted with it.
Practice this visualization for a few days, and then start to consciously change the shape and color of the pain. It may take some time, but you may be able to achieve some control over your back pain and eventually learn to form some kind of manageable relationship with it.
Breath
According to several health and meditational experts, “the diaphragm is the seat of the intelligence of the heart and the window to the soul.” However, when you’re stressed, inhaling and exhaling become difficult because the diaphragm becomes too taut to alter its shape. Inversion table therapy stretches develop elasticity in the diaphragm, so that when you’re stressed—whether emotionally, physically, or intellectually—you’ll be able to handle it.
Practicing inversion stretches, along with breath and meditation helps to consolidate the entire body, mind and intellect. The slow exhalations that are practiced during meditational inversion therapy help to bring serenity to the spinal cells; to relax the facial muscles; and to release tension from the eyes, ears, nose, tongue and skin.
Remember the brain interacts with the organs frequently. This means the serenity that comes from doing meditational inversion therapy keeps our brains still, so we become totally relaxed and all thoughts in addition to back pain are released.