Fancy yourself like Batman?
Maybe you should try
hanging upside down like these guys.
Or not.
But what if, like Bruce Wayne,
you spent the entire night upside down?
David Blaine hung upside down for
almost 60 hours
in a 2008 endurance stunt.
Eight hours should be no problem
for the average person then, right?
Well, not exactly.
It seems we’re not all David Blaine.
Take the poor soul who got stuck
upside down in a cave in Utah.
He was suspended for 28 hours.
He died of asphyxiation,
which is the process of being deprived of oxygen.
This is one of the risks of being upside down
for too long.
To get a full night's rest,
you put on your super warm pajamas,
since blankets would just slip off,
get onto your specially made inversion bed,
strap in,
drift off to sleep,
and then what?
Well, there are several things that would
happen to you as you slumber.
With your head directly under your feet,
the weight of gravity on your organs would
soon begin to crush your delicate lungs.
Your body won’t be able to get enough oxygen.
While our bodies are great at making sure
no blood collects in our feet when we are upright,
we haven’t evolved this same ability
with our brains.
If you slept upside down,
your blood would quickly pool up in your brain,
which can lead to a brain hemorrhage.
That would be game over.
Though, you’d probably die from
heart failure before your brain could hemorrhage.
With your head below your heart,
your heart would slow down and
wouldn’t be able to effectively pump
all the incoming blood.
Your blood pressure
would become almost impossible to maintain
and cause the failure of essential functions.
So long sweet dreams.
It’s pretty clear that we’re not meant to be
upside down for long periods of time.
But what about for a reduced amount?
And that’s short as in 30 seconds to two minutes.
This has multiple health benefits.
It helps with blood circulation and can
lower your resting heart rate.
It’s also amazing on your back
by increasing spinal cord flexibility and
maintaining the natural curve of your neck.
If you have a robust inversion practice,
you could eventually hang upside down
for 20 minutes safely.
But not all night.
If we can’t catch a few z's this way,
why can other mammals?
Simply put, their bodies are built for it.
The most famous inverted sleeper,
the bat,
evolved the ability to sleep upside down
because it makes them less visible to predators.
They also don’t face the same issues that humans do,
since gravity doesn’t affect their circulation.
If snoozing upside down is out,
what is the best position?
It really depends on your body.
While sleeping on your back is generally
considered the best because
it puts your spine in a neutral position,
it is not good for people who suffer from sleep apnea.
We sleep for about one-third of our lives
and it’s an important factor
in our overall health.
It’s believed sleep helps with
stress management, metabolism,
brain function, and mood.
And, I don’t know about you,
but I feel pretty awful when I don't
get enough of it.
While sleep is still somewhat a mystery,
one thing we know sleep does is
increase plasticity.
Plasticity is the brain’s ability to
reorganize itself
and is vitally important for memory and learning.
So what would happen
if you just stopped sleeping?
Well, that's a story for another WHAT IF.