Speaker 1: Welcome to Brainstuff, a production of iHeartRadio. Hey brain Stuff,
Speaker 1: lorn volgebum here and I am recording this episode live
Speaker 1: from the iHeart Podcast studio powered by Bows at the
Speaker 1: House of Music at the iHeartRadio Music Festival. So yes,
Speaker 1: I'm in a booth at a music festival and I'm
Speaker 1: about to talk to you about hanging upside down. Here's
Speaker 1: where we are. Okay, So, does hanging upside down make
Speaker 1: you feel a little panicky? Like it might explode your head,
Speaker 1: like all your spit might pool in your nose and
Speaker 1: drown you, Or like your eyes might pop out of
Speaker 1: their sockets and PLoP on the floor. Don't worry, none
Speaker 1: of those didn't happen. But hanging out in a head
Speaker 1: down position isn't completely harmless either. In fact, being suspended
Speaker 1: upside down for too long might not eject your eyeballs,
Speaker 1: although it can occasionally lead to a temporary loss of
Speaker 1: vision in some people, but it would eventually kill you,
Speaker 1: basically of asphyxiation or heart failure. It turns out your
Speaker 1: lungs evolved to sit on top of all of your
Speaker 1: other organs for a reason. Being as delicate as they are.
Speaker 1: It doesn't take them long to get squished by the bigger,
Speaker 1: heavier organs like the liver and intestines that usually sit
Speaker 1: below them. This isn't as much of a problem when you're, say,
Speaker 1: lying on an incline with your feet slightly elevated above
Speaker 1: your head, But when your head is directly underneath your feet,
Speaker 1: your lungs simply can't expand enough to absorb enough oxygen
Speaker 1: to fuel your body given the available space that they
Speaker 1: have to work with. But it's not just the lungs
Speaker 1: you have to worry about during extended periods of reverse suspension.
Speaker 1: Our bodies are well set up to move blood around
Speaker 1: when we're standing upright, and our blood vessels are customized
Speaker 1: to make sure that blood doesn't cool in our feet
Speaker 1: due to gravity, but that system is a one way street.
Speaker 1: Our bodies did not evolve to prevent blood from pooling
Speaker 1: in the head. This can actually be a bit of
Speaker 1: a problem for astronauts hanging out in the near zero
Speaker 1: gravity of orbit. It makes their sinuses swell up with blood,
Speaker 1: which makes them feel a little stuffy. But more critically,
Speaker 1: should blood pool in the brain, specifically as it could
Speaker 1: during prolonged upside down suspension in normal earth gravity, all
Speaker 1: sorts of things could go wrong, including ruptured blood vessels,
Speaker 1: which can lead to brain hemorrhage or which is bad. However,
Speaker 1: medical professionals think heart failure is the cause of death
Speaker 1: in most upside down fatalities for much the same reason
Speaker 1: that our brains can suffer. When your head down, your
Speaker 1: heart slows down, it's pumping and starts receiving more blood
Speaker 1: than it has the capacity to manage at one time.
Speaker 1: It begins to have a hard time maintaining blood pressure
Speaker 1: and eventually loses its ability to move around enough blood
Speaker 1: to maintain all of the body's essential functions. But okay,
Speaker 1: here's a weird thing. Although hanging upside down can occasionally
Speaker 1: or eventually kill you, if you take it in shorter stints,
Speaker 1: it can converse pretty compelling health benefits. Inverted poses in
Speaker 1: disciplines like yoga encourage blood to flow from the feet, legs,
Speaker 1: and pelvis back to the heart and lungs, where it
Speaker 1: picks up fresh oxygen. The studies have shown that over time,
Speaker 1: brief inversions can lower the resting heart rate, increase overall endurance,
Speaker 1: and help your body use oxygen more efficiently during exercise.
Speaker 1: And Although in vers suspension can be dangerous. It's actually
Speaker 1: pretty rare that people die from it. Just for example,
Speaker 1: when a Belgian roller coaster failed in nineteen ninety seven,
Speaker 1: stranding a group of riders upside down for about an
Speaker 1: hour and a half. Everyone survived the ordeal just fine.
Speaker 1: There doesn't even seem to be a hard and fast
Speaker 1: rule about how long it's safe to hang out upside down.
Speaker 1: We do know that anyone with a pre existing heart
Speaker 1: or lung condition should be more cautious about it. But
Speaker 1: the rule of thumb seems to be if you're upside
Speaker 1: down and start to feel like you should stop, then stop,
Speaker 1: which is a pretty good rule for pretty much anything
Speaker 1: when it comes to our weird and wonderful bodies. Today's
Speaker 1: episode was recorded live at the iHeart Podcast Studio powered
Speaker 1: by Bows at the House of Music at iHeartRadio Music Festival.
Speaker 1: It's based on the article how long can a person
Speaker 1: safely hang upside Down? On how Stuffworks dot Com written
Speaker 1: by Jeslin Shields. Brain Stuff is production of by Heart
Speaker 1: Radio in partnership with HowStuffWorks dot Com and is produced
Speaker 1: by Tyler Klang. Four more podcasts from my Heart Radio
Speaker 1: visit the iHeartRadio, app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen
Speaker 1: to your favorite shows.