BellaOnline Forums Health and Fitness Yoga Yoga and your Period

I had read in one of my yoga books that you shouldn't do certain positions when you have your period.

Is this really true?? I have *never* given any thought to doing or not doing things just because I had my period. I've gone out biking, dancing, you name it. Is this some sort of ancient superstition?

No, it's not superstition - it's any of the inversion positions where your heart is lower than your pelvis (ie, you want that blood to keep flowing with gravity, not pooling in the other direction).

Shoulder stand and head stand in particular are not recommended, but bridge pose can be substituted for a short duration if you really need to work on your thoracic area during your period.

I was thinking the same thing! your period flows with gravity and there is nothing to push the blood out of your body so if you invert yourself it could cause problems. I know one of the girls in my massage class said that if she inverted herself during her period her period would stop completely and she thought it was cool until she had medical problems because of it. the blood would run backwards and back up into her tubes... I am not sure how commen this would be but I would not take the chance because I have problems already.

But I used to do headstands and stuff all the time as a teenager!! Does anybody tell teen girls "don't put your legs in the air during your period time"? Wouldn't we have girls with all sorts of medical issues if this was a serious problem? Do gymnasts really not perform during their period?

This still amazes me ... we're only talking about a few minutes, not a full day session of inversion

my friend use to spend hours upside down just to relax and let the blood come back to her head and decompress her spine that is why she had the problems I would think because of the length of time she did was upside down... I would not think this would be commen in most people. I mean most people would not find standing on there head relaxing! Gymnist also dont stay upside down for long they keep moving so the blood does not have time to reverse or thats what I would think anyways. I dont know! I might be talking out my backside here... I am just going by what my friend said...

Sure, but young girls and teens don't spend up to an hour standing on their heads... Even gymnasts only do quick inversions.

The warnings really are more for those who use yoga as meditation, where a pose may be used to go into a trance and you would have little idea of how long you've been inverted. In these instances, it's not just a few minutes.

OH so you're not just talking about doing a 30 second downward dog - but really long headstand meditations?

OK that starts to make much more sense to me

yes Sorry I thought that was what we were talking about... I didnt realize in your first post that you ment for a short length of time..

i wonder if yoga helps cramps?

Ha ha! I didn't realize it was common for people to spend so much time standing on their heads.

Do women in Australia have that problem with the blood going the wrong way??