How To Do A Headstand: Step-By-Step

Let's start with some truth. There is a certain amount of body awareness and strength - plus patience and lots of practice - that's needed to master this pose. There's a physical level of demand and a technical level of knowledge that are important so you'll feel safe up there. It's not beyond anyone, as long as you follow the steps, but it's unlikely that you will float your legs up with grace and stability the first time. Stick with it and it will happen!

Headstand, known as Sirsasana in Sanskrit, is considered the greatest of all asanas because of its powerful association with stimulating the crown chakra (Sahasrara), located at the top of the head. This chakra is believed to govern our spiritual connection, consciousness, and universal energy. Blood flow moving toward the crown is thought to "energise" the area, bringing awareness to higher states of consciousness and promoting mental clarity. And physically the inversion helps to strengthen the core, shoulders, and arms, while increasing focus and enhancing circulation. There are many reasons to incorporate Headstand into your daily practice! But how do you get there in a safe, stable and comfortable way?

Just quickly, people with neck, head or shoulder issues, high blood pressure, glaucoma, recent injuries or surgery, should avoid Headstands until you get the all clear from your health professional.

The Benefits Of Headstand

As I mentioned, it's often referred to as the "king of all postures" for a reason. There's a wide range of physical and mental benefits. Here are a few of the ways that this pose can improve your health and well-being ↓

Core Strength
Headstand asks a lot from our core, especially when floating both legs up together and maintaining balance. You can strengthen your abdominal muscles, lower back, and hip flexors all at once with this pose.

Balance and Coordination
Holding a Headstand demands a great deal of balance and coordination. It requires the use of drishti - that magical point of focus we use in yoga. With regular practice, you can improve these skills and develop greater body awareness.

Energy and Focus
In yoga philosophy these inversions are believed to boost your energy and promote mental clarity. Reversing the flow of blood and oxygen in the body can make you feel more alive, awake, and alert. They all work directly on the crown chakra, knocking on the door of higher levels of consciousness.

Stress and Anxiety
Inversions are also thought to have a calming effect on the mind and body. They release tension in your muscles, offer a single pointed focus experience, and help quiet your mind.

How To Do A Headstand In Yoga: The Steps

Firstly, all good things take time, so don't quit on me! Like I said, there's a strength component and a technical component to Headstand, and there's also an element of courage because the world is a different place upside down! A great way to work on these technical postures is to break down and workshop their components. Learn what it takes to experience the full expression, see where your own blockages are, then isolate and work on those actions. For example, the basket grip component of Headstand is very similar to our set up in Dolphin pose. So start with building strength there, before transferring it over. Targeting the components of challenging postures gives you a far better anatomical understanding of their structure and alignment, which only makes your overall practice stronger. The main reason I see people not getting there in class is because we only have a short moment to explore them - and only with teachers skilled enough to add them intelligently in sequence. So working on the posture progressively outside of class, using other poses that build strength and understanding how they go together is important.

The Secret Joint Stacking Sauce

Joint stacking matters for all inversions, not only Headstand. It's about aligning your body parts so that one joint is directly over another, creating a stable and efficient support system. This improves your balance and protects vulnerable joints as the weight gets distributed more evenly. And it takes out the strain of having to pull the legs back and forth to keep stable. When everything is stacked correctly and balanced, the feeling of ease is quite addictive! In Headstand that means stacking the shoulders over the elbows, the hips over the shoulders and the ankles over the hips. Then the glutes and quads turn on to stop those floppy spaghetti legs.

Crown On The Ground?

A little while back we were at a cafe in Bali alongside a 200hr yoga training school. The students sat down for lunch and two started arguing about what goes on in Headstand. Their disagreement centred on whether the head touches the ground or not, with the very vocal student insisting they were taught that it shouldn't. Now firstly, it's not something that anyone should get riled up about and start a public argument. And second, it should be common sense really... It is called "Head-Stand" for a reason. I want to assure you that the head DOES touch the ground. In fact, there's an advanced progression of Headstand (Niralamba Sirsasana) where the weight of the entire body is supported by the head. But while your head does touch the ground, it's important to hold most of your weight in the shoulders and forearms to protect your neck and head. You should be able to comfortably turn your head from side to side.

Preparation Poses For Headstand

Never forget the 5 P's of success: Preparation Prevents Piss Poor Performance. So let's start with some preparation postures for strengthening your shoulders and core. A stable foundation is absolutely essential in Headstand, and regularly practicing Dolphin Pose (to build shoulder strength) and Forearm Plank (for core strength) will help create a safe foundation.

Alignment Cues For Headstand

Place Your Hands and Forearms
Come onto your knees and interlace your fingers, forming a triangular base with your forearms. Your elbows are roughly shoulder width apart. Place the crown of your head lightly on the mat, cupped by your hands.

Lift The Hips
Tuck your toes under, straighten your legs, and lift your hips towards the ceiling. Walk your feet closer to your head, allowing your hips to stack over your shoulders. The closer you get them, the easier it is to stack and less effort will be needed to lift your legs.

Engage The Core and Lift One Leg
Engage your core and gently lift one leg as high as it will go. This will ideally bring the last little bit of stacking, then use your core to lift the other leg. Alternatively, you can also lift both legs at once if you have the core strength and your hips are stacked. Another option is to bend both knees and slowly pull them up to your chest, before pointing your toes and sending the feet high. No kicking up please!!

Find Balance and Extend
Once balanced, slowly straighten your legs toward the ceiling. Keep the core engaged and the shoulders strong to avoid placing too much weight on your head. Engage your glutes and point through the toes to keep the energy moving up.

Hold and Breathe
Remember to breathe! Then focus on alignment and balance. To come down, slowly reverse the movements, bringing your feet back to the floor.

4 Tips To Get Comfortable In Headstand

It's important to always practice safely and with patience. We've both fallen out of it at times and it's scary when that happens, so here are some tips for practicing safely.

Always Warm Up First
Sun salutations, pyramid pose and other hamstring openers, shoulder stretches, Dolphin pose, and some core work. Before attempting Headstand, always warm up your body first, focusing on movements that mimic the components needed for the full expression of Headstand.

Use A Wall For Support
If you're not comfortable, use a wall. But use it in a way that helps you progress! A wall is only ever there as a last barrier against falling. Don't get into the habit of kicking up looking for it.

Engage Your Core
Your core does the work lifting into Headstand. Draw your navel in toward your spine and hold this engagement throughout the pose. A great way to build strength for bringing the legs up together with control is using a table (or anything that is hip high) to rest your feet on and lift up from there to vertical. Practice going up and down from this height. Slowly over time you can lower the height, until your core and hips are strong enough to lift your feet from the floor.

Don't Force It, Find The Joy
If you feel any pain or discomfort in your neck or shoulders, don't go into Headstand, or come out of the pose immediately. Never force yourself into a position that feels unsafe or uncomfortable. It's just yoga! Whether you float up to Headstand or not won't change whether the sun comes up and goes down. Find the joy in this experience of exploration and appreciate that if it was easy the reward is not the same.

Headstand is such a satisfying posture to do in class. It comes with a real sense of achievement. Not that it matters in the grand scheme of anything, but floating up gracefully midway through a Vinyasa sequence, in a class full of students, is very satisfying. So don't quit if you're not there yet, there is only time and practice between where you're at now and where you want to be. And check out our Headstand tutorial in the online studio here to be guided through the pose in person.