Gravity is always with us.  We feel its effects all the time; and experience its gradual damage to our bodies over the years of our life. Probably no other force affects us so dramatically as gravity.

Gravity Effects Build Up All Day

Have you ever noticed that your pants can feel a little tighter around the waist toward the end of the day?  Maybe you have found that if you adjust your rear-view mirror upward in the morning, it needs to come down at night?

Since the age of 20, (yes 20!) you’ve been losing about 1/2″ in height every twenty years…

Perhaps you suffer from varicose veins, swollen feet or an aching back?

If you responded yes to any of these questions, then you have experienced the compressive force of gravity.

Spinal Compression

The most noticeable effect of gravity on the body is compression of the spine. Our spine is built up from bone (vertebrae) and sponge-like discs. Gravity causes the discs to compress throughout the day, and this results in a remarkable daily height loss of up to 1/2″ – 3/4″!
Overnight, the discs reflate with fluid, but not quite 100%.

Over our lifetime, we can permanently lose between  1/2″  -  2″  in height!

Bulging Waist

Height loss not only affects the health of your back. Your organs become compressed and your waist girth increases (without any actual weight gain).  We call the bulges in our waist compression wrinkles.   They are, partly, a direct result of compression of the spine! This may effect your ability to move and bend.  Even simple daily activities are more problematic…

Compression of Organs

Gravity strongly affects the inside of your body too. Over time, your organs begin to prolapse, or fall, from their proper place in your body. When this happens, organ function becomes less efficient. It is possible to experience bladder, kidney and digestive problems due to prolapsed organs. You might have heard of yoga practitioners doing head stands; well that challenges gravity and helps to ensure proper organ placement.

Loss of Flexibility

The measurable height loss and distended waistlines is accompanied by a lost of flexibility. As we age, it becomes vital to maintain an active lifestyle. We don’t want gravity to rob us of the ability to follow favourite activities, like golf, gardening, and playing with our grandkids…

Poor Circulation

Gravity impedes the blood in our bodies from freely flowing upward. Over the years this extra work takes a toll on the circulatory system.  We may get cause varicose veins, decreased scalp circulation and swollen limbs. Poor  circulation to the upper body tissues and organs – the eyes, ears, skin, scalp and brain is one reason why they deteriorate with ageing.

The Pink Test

Try this :  lift up your right arm for two minutes.  When you lower your arm. compare your right and left hands.  Which one is more pink?  You might like to consider the effect of standing all day on your lower limbs, with gravity  drawing blood fluids downwards.  We have an instinctive understanding of what we need to do: we “put our feet up” at rest..  This helps the heart to circulate fluids properly again to our organs..

What is Ageing?

We tend to think of these problems as the unavoidable side of ageing.  Remember the spinal shrinkage starts at 20… and the truth is that these health deteriorations are largely caused by the constant presence of gravity. 

Unlike ageing, these effects are not unavoidable.

More on Gravity

Here’s a startling observation – astronauts grow two inches while in space! Whilst they’re in orbit, astronauts’ discs  continue to absorb fluid.  With no gravitational pull to squeeze the fluid out, the discs stay fully inflated.

The astronauts’ spines get longer and they become taller.

Space suits are actually designed to absorb the extra two inches of spinal stretch.

Beating the Compression

Most of us will remain in the earth’s gravity for all our lives. We need some ways to compensate for gravity.  We develop in the womb, a  near-weightless environment.  During the last trimester, babies turn upside-down, and this helps with brain development.

 As an infant you might have slept bottoms-up?  In this way, keeping your head lower than your heart, you encouraged a proper supply of blood and oxygen to your brain.  Children have bags of energy and flexibility needed  to “escape gravity” by riding on swings, or hanging upside down on the monkey bars.

 As adults, we lose that agility, so we then to prop our legs and feet up.  This helps to compensate for gravity’s constant pressure.

Employ Gravity in Your Own Home

Since we cannot escape gravity, it’s best to get it working for us. By inverting your body you can use gravity’s force to stretch (relax) and elongate your body.

There is a study by Nachemson that showed that you are unable to escape compression by simply lying down. The study showed that spinal compression can be overcome by applying a traction force of 60% of our body weight. Fine,  but you can’t easily do this at home.. mechanical traction is simply too difficult to practice at home.

Fortunately there is a practical and inexpensive way to achieve the necessary stretching is through Inversion.

Inversion therapy tables are a simple tool to help us reverse the effects of gravity on our body. To discover how Inversion can help to elongate the spine, support proper organ position, improve blood and fluid circulation and increase flexibility check out Inversion Tables at the Healthy Back Institute

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