This is a question that students have asked me:
Sometimes, after a deep practice with lots of backbends, I feel irritable and snappish. Are the backbends making me angry?
Backbends open the heart center (the anahata chakra) and this has different effects on different people. Some people cry or feel blue, some become energized to the point they have trouble falling asleep (no backbends right before bedtime!), and others may find themselves feeling irritable, or like they’ve just contracted sudden-onset PMS. Still others may feel wrung-out and wobbly.
The reasons for the variety of responses are probably as numerous as the responses themselves:
Some people have lots of stored emotion in their heart center that is released and accessed through postures that open the heart center. Others may have experienced physical trauma in this area. Tightness through the chest and the back of the body can be a protective response.
Backbends are physically and emotionally complex. They require trust and faith, because you’re bending backwards into the unknown. They require lots of muscle work and breath control. The configuration of backbends stimulates the endocrine system at the back of the body, the kidneys, and more specifically, the glands on top of the kidneys called the adrenals. The adrenals are instrumental in activating our “fight or flight response”. They release hormones that have an impact on our heart rate, blood pressure, and blood sugar, among other things.
Here is a longer essay I wrote about opening the heart center.
So my answer is this: Yes. I think backbends could (in the short term) make you feel angry, or more specifically, make you release pent-up anger.
My advice:
- Don’t give up the backbends. If you’re having a strong reaction to them, chances are you need them, and need to work through your reaction to them.
- Make sure you warm up thoroughly before you begin backbending.
- Avoid caffeine and sugar before your practice.
- Don’t eat for at least two hours before your practice.
- Don’t backbend when taking antihistamines, diet pills, energy-boosting supplements, or after using inhalers, or other medications that can raise your blood pressure and speed up your pulse.
- You might consider avoiding deep backbends when you’re already feeling irritable, or feeling the symptoms of PMS.
- Pay special attention to your cool-down poses (I like several twisting postures after backbends, because they tend to calm the nervous system, and also supported forward bends) and consider including a restorative pose in your practice.
- Extend Savasana (Final Relaxation, or Corpse Pose) and give yourself space to feel whatever comes up for you.
- After practice, avoid caffeine, sugar, and hot, spicy foods until you feel “level” again.
I hope this helps!
I couldn’t write this post without mentioning that my dear friend Shelby once tried to talk her way out of a speeding ticket by patiently explaining to the officer that she had just come from a yoga class that had focused on backbends… it didn’t work. Even here in Northern California.
Namasté.
Oooh, backbends. I’m sure they have a valuable lesson to teach me. I don’t get strong emotions during backbends but I do get nausea and a sort of “body panic” [can't describe it any other way]. It happens almost immediately after going into the pose. Ustrasana is the worst. Could this be a similar thing to what you’re describing? I don’t want to give up on backbends so I’m taking them very gently, hoping to coax my body into the realisation that every thing is okay!
In the 30 years I’ve been doing yoga, I’ve always been a “backbend” person. Now that I’m 51 and in the throes of menopause, I find myself not “wanting to go” where backbends take me. This seems to be a period of my life where I’m traveling within more than ever, and backbends have always seemed to hurl me out into the universe. Just an observation. Love the blog.
Very true about the backbends and nausea. For years I’ve been straightening my crooked back into a straight one. Years of pain and nausea. My back eventually got straight but all this pain and nausea I’ll never forget in a million years! All of these symptoms that you’ve described above – I do get all of them at once. Unimaginably difficult asana for me, related to physical suffering, but in the end it did its thing. Wonder if the acrobats and snake people do get through the same frustration with their backbends. Any idea?
I’ve always been a little afraid of backbends. I hope it is not because my heart is not open. I must really need to do them and I’ll keep trying. Thanks for the great information ….I really like your blog!
My back eventually got straight but all this pain and nausea I’ll never forget in a million years!
I am having some progress with backbends, thanks God! I had a terrible experience before. The pain and sweat has made me more determined to succeed.
Love this post! I KNOW if using backbends as an excuse in Northern Cal doesn’t work then trying it here is SC is out of the question…haha. Namaste, mandy
Thank you for writing about this. Often, I end up in classes where people are warming up before the class begins with back bends and head stands. I am usually screaming inside hoping a teacher will say something and sadly enough, the teacher does not say anything.
Love the blog, love the spirit of blog.
With love and yoga,
Dipika
Sometimes with our focus on the physical aspects of yoga we forget that our emotions, our thoughts, our entire being is really interconnected … these things don’t exist separately of one another, so of course a physical posture is going to have an affect on everything else.
There are two really great books to help you to understand and work through the emotions that arise in asana practice. Swami Lalitananda’s ‘Inner Life of Asanas’ and Sivananda Radha’s ‘Hatha Yoga; the Hidden Language’. They are available through Amazon.
I’ve heard of people getting super worked up after back bends. I could go right to sleep after if I had to.
Love this post! it took me over two years to get into a backbend and enjoy it. there was simply too much baggage to deal with. you have to stay with it, there is no escape.
love your blog! hope you will visit mine at yogifari.blogspot.com
namaste!
farida
I love back bends but a little while later often feel reflective and blue and sometimes quietly tearful – it passes and obviously needs to come out. Will look up the books mentioned by Jane.