As we go about our daily lives, various activities take a toll on our muscles and joints. Gravity impacts our spines. Whether we’re sitting at a desk for hours each day or hitting the trail or gym for a hard workout, many people end up with aches and pains. Some folks even suffer from injuries. For many people, inversion table therapy can provide huge relief to their daily fatigue, pain, swelling, and stiffness. One of the benefits of inversion table therapy is that it can help kickstart the body’s natural healing process.

Hanging Upside Down, Benefits of Inversion Table in Action

What is inversion table therapy? Although equipment and positions vary, this kind of therapy refers to putting oneself in a position where the head is lower than the heart. In more extreme positions, you may lay or hang so that your feet are positioned above your head. Some people use anti-gravity boots to suspend themselves in a completely upside down position. That may feel a bit extreme to people who are new to inversion therapy, however. The good news is that you can reap all the inversion table benefits with a gentler therapy that won’t have you dangling by your feet and looking like Batman.

Our Top Inversion Table Picks

IRONMAN Gravity 4000	- Brand: Ironman Fitness - Length: 49 - Width: 26 - Height: 65 - Weight: 76lbs	Check Price
Exerpeutic Inversion Table	- Brand: Exerpeutic - Length: 46 - Width: 27 - Height: 57 - Weight: 55lbs	Check Price
Ironman Gravity 1000	- Brand: IronMan - Length: 49 - Width: 25 - Height: 62 - Weight: 46lbs	Check Price
Teeter EP-560	- Brand: Teeter - Length: 20 - Width: 28.8 - Height: 66	Check Price
Ironman LX300	- Brand: Ironman Fitness - Length: 46.4 - Width: 27 - Height: 57 - Weight: 55lbs	Check Price
Invertio Premium	- Brand: Invertio - Length: 48 - Width: 27 - Height: 55 - Weight: 52lbs	Check Price
Inversion Table Pro	- Brand: Best Choice - Length: 46 - Width: 18 - Height: 43 - Weight: 49.8lbs	Check Price
IRONMAN GRAVITY 3000	- Brand: Ironman - Length: 49 - Width: 26 - Height: 65 - Weight: 67lbs	Check Price
Teeter Hang Ups EP 560	- Brand: Teeter - Length: 84 - Width: 28.8 - Height: 86 - Weight: 68lbs	Check Price
Teeter Hang Ups EP 960	- Brand: Teeter - Length: 84 - Width: 28 - Height: 86 - Weight: 73lbs	Check Price

One of the benefits of inversion table therapy for beginners is that you can customize the angle at which you dangle. Many folks don’t like the feeling of being overly inverted when they first start out with this therapy. They often complain that the blood rushes to their head. While this is normal, it can take some getting used to, and the best way to get used to it is to start slowly and gently. When first starting out, you can invert just a tiny amount so that your body stays almost parallel to the floor. As you become more comfortable, you will be able to invert farther to get a better stretch.

But wait!—why practice inversion therapy at all? Why on earth would people spend time dangling even slightly upside down? Are there real inversion table benefits? If you start slow, build up, and use your inversion table regularly, here are some of the ways your body will thank you.

• Inversion Tables Ease Back Pain

As we go about our daily lives, gravity compresses our spine. By the end of the day, this can cause some serious pain and inflammation. When we lay down to sleep at night, this takes some of the strain off of our tired backs. To really relieve that pressure, however, you’ll want to reverse gravity by gently inverting. Decompressing the spine this way is known as spinal traction, and it can greatly reduce pressure on the nerves and discs that make up the spine. Less overall back pain is one of the most important benefits of inversion table therapy.

• Avoid Back Surgery

Back surgery is a scary idea, so it’s understandable that back pain sufferers wish to try a variety of non-surgical options before heading to the operating room. For many users, inversion therapy can reduce pain and heal back problems—helping them avoid surgery altogether. Although it does take time and repeated uses for inversion therapy to work, it saves money, avoids painful and lengthy recovery time, and is a much less anxiety-inducing strategy for those who are faced with potential back surgery. For those who are looking for a less-extreme solution to back pain or injury, inversion table therapy is definitely worth a try.

• Get That Spine in Shape with Inversion Therapy

If you’ve ever been to a chiropractor, you know that many back, neck, and leg issues originate in the spine. When receiving chiropractic treatment, your practitioner will gently stretch your spine and work to realign it. Why do they do this? In order for our bodies to work correctly, our spines must be straight, the discs aligned, and there must be plenty of room for the nerves to come and go in and out of spinal openings. Any misalignment in this system can cause big problems—either in the back or elsewhere.

One of the benefits of inversion table therapy is that it helps stretch and align the spine, easing and repairing conditions such as herniated discs or spinal stenosis. As the spine is gently stretched out, misaligned discs are better able to ease back into place. Improved blood flow helps repair damaged tissues. This is also helpful for people with spinal stenosis. Stretching of the spinal ligaments helps to relax them so that they cease pulling the spine out of alignment.

• Relieve Achy Joints

Another in the long list of inversion table benefits is relief of overworked and painful joints. This is especially helpful for runners or people who engage in workouts that are high impact and hard on your joints. Hard workouts stress your muscles, which tense up and negatively affect joints. Inversion therapy helps stretch and relax muscles—as well as takes the pressure of gravity off of your joints—helping you recover faster.

• Help Nerve Pain

Nerve pain can mean a lot of things. It can refer to compressed nerves caused by the narrowing of the open space inside your spine. It can refer to sciatica pain. Compression of nerves can cause pain, tingling, or numbness in the back, as well as in the arms or the legs.  Because so much of people’s nerve pain is caused by nerve compression from a misalignment of a spinal disc or inflammation of muscles or ligaments, inversion table therapy can provide some relief. As mentioned above, one of the inversion table benefits is that it can allow misaligned discs to gently slip back into place, taking the pressure off of surrounding nerves. It also improves blood flow and promotes relaxation, helping irritated muscles and injured ligaments heal and return to normal.

• Help Lymph Flow

Our lymphatic system is an important part of clearing toxins and waste out of our bodies. Many people’s bodies struggle to move lymphatic fluid along, causing swelling in their feet, ankles, and even their entire legs. Lymphatic fluid is affected by gravity and tends to pool in our extremities. For this reason, inversion therapy can help drain that fluid and get it moving again.

• Improve Circulation

Speaking of lymph flow—that’s not the only fluid system that inversion therapy can help improve. Our circulatory system is used to constantly fighting gravity in order to keep things moving. When we invert, blood flows out of the extremities where it tends to try to pool, helping it find its way to the heart more easily.

• Muscle Relaxation

Improved blood flow helps not only our hearts, but our entire body! When our circulatory system works better, we experience increased blood flow to our muscles. This means that our muscles receive more of the oxygen and nutrients they crave. This helps them heal and repair after a hard workout. Stretching also helps tense muscles relax—a big benefit to our physical health, as well as our emotional health.

• Stretching Helps Flexibility

Generations of yogis will tell you that stretching reaps huge health rewards. There’s a reason why doctors suggest exercise like yoga and tai chi for their patients—and particularly the ones who are dealing with stiffness, muscle pain, and joint problems. As we age, we begin to lose flexibility and range of motion. This can be exacerbated by injuries and conditions such as arthritis. Exercise and yoga are ways to keep things moving, but one of the inversion table benefits that many users notice is the ability to go into deeper, longer stretches than is possible with yoga or other exercises. Rather than having to hold a pose, when you use an inversion table, you can simply lie back, relax, and let gravity do all of the work for you.

The stretch you get from an inversion table benefits multiple parts of your body. It elongates muscles and ligaments. It also enables spinal discs to separate, allowing the lubricating, jelly-like material inside of them to replenish. This is important, because gravity compresses spinal discs throughout the day, squeezing this material out.

Should I Try Inversion Table Therapy?

If you’ve never tried inversion therapy before, there are plenty of places where you can give it a trial run to see if it’s right for you. Once you begin noticing the benefits, you’ll likely want to have the convenience of inversion table therapy sessions on your schedule, in your home. There are a wide variety of inversion tables available both in brick-and-mortar stores and online. Check out these helpful online reviews to help find the inversion table that’s right for you.

Don’t forget that it’s always a good idea to talk to your doctor before starting any new medical therapy or exercise routine. Because of specific issues related to inversion and circulation, people with heart disease, glaucoma, or hypertension should absolutely talk to their doctors before using an inversion table.