Hanging Upside Down Benefits: What Studies Measured and What They Didn't

Hanging Upside Down Benefits, Claim by Claim

The benefits of hanging upside down that have been tested are mostly about the spine and muscles, and the studies are small, short, and done on healthy volunteers. That is useful for understanding what happens in the body. It is not proof of treatment.

Does It Lengthen Your Spine?

This is the best-supported claim, and it is a mechanical one. In 1978, Nosse had 20 healthy men lie on a motorized tilt table and found that one minute of inversion significantly increased spinal length, measured with a tape from sitting to inverted (Nosse, 1978). In 1986, a team led by Ballantyne suspended 18 healthy adults aged 22 to 31 for seven minutes and measured the spine with a computerized posture method. Distance between the lowest lumbar level and the sacrum increased and the thoracolumbar curves became shallower. The spine lengthened on a frame that supports the body, but not in gravity boots (Ballantyne, 1986).

Both are short-term findings in healthy people. They show that gravity can pull the spine longer for as long as you hang. They do not show that the lengthening lasts, or that it helps anything.

Does It Relax Your Muscles?

The evidence is split. In 1985, deVries and Cailliet tested 12 healthy people who had been screened for above-normal resting muscle tension. Two minutes of inversion cut resting neuromuscular tension by 28.3 percent, against 7.1 percent after resting for the same time (deVries, 1985). Nosse’s earlier study also found lower electrical activity in the lower back muscles during inversion.

A 2016 study from Korea found the opposite. In 60 healthy men, electrical activity in the lumbar erector spinae was higher after six minutes of inversion than before, and the authors concluded inversion is more likely to raise muscle tension and prevent relaxation (Kim, 2016). The two used different angles, times, samples and measurement moments, so they are not a clean contradiction. The honest summary is that nobody can say whether hanging upside down relaxes your back muscles.

Is It Good for Back Pain?

Here the evidence is thinner than the marketing. A small trial in 47 women with chronic low back pain reported that eight weeks of inversion at 60 degrees reduced pain and improved lumbar flexibility and trunk strength (Kim, 2013). It is a small, women-only trial in a niche journal, and we found no repeat of it, so treat it as a lead and not a verdict.

The larger picture is less encouraging. A Cochrane review published in 2013 pooled 32 trials with 2,762 people and found that traction, alone or with other treatment, has little or no impact on pain, function or return to work in low back pain (Wegner, 2013). That review covers traction in general, manual and machine, not inversion tables specifically. It also noted that seven of the 32 trials reported adverse effects, including more pain and aggravated neurological signs. If back pain is why you are here, the table-based version of this question is covered in our inversion table benefits guide, and our overview of inversion therapy sets out how the traction is supposed to work.

Does It Improve Circulation?

This is the claim people repeat most, and the one with the least support. In a 2019 ultrasound study on an actual inversion table, tilting into inversion produced significant changes in optic nerve sheath diameter (a marker of pressure inside the skull) and in blood flow through the carotid and middle cerebral arteries (Kondrashova, 2019). The authors did not call that a benefit. They concluded that inversion therapy “should be used with caution,” especially for people with a history of raised pressure inside the skull.

A change in blood flow is not an improvement in blood flow. Nothing in that study supports “better circulation” or “more oxygen to the brain.”

What Happens to Your Body Upside Down

Turn upside down and gravity shifts blood toward your head and chest. Your body responds within seconds, and the responses are the best-measured part of this topic.

Blood Pressure Rises

Haskvitz and Hanten randomly assigned 60 women aged 20 to 30 to two minutes of inversion or two minutes of standing. Systolic and diastolic blood pressure rose significantly in the inverted group. The authors wrote that this means caution is needed and that people with hypertension may need to avoid it (Haskvitz, 1986). In Ballantyne’s seven-minute study, heart rate fell while blood pressure rose by an average of 20 mmHg, and that pattern held throughout the session (Ballantyne, 1986).

Eye Pressure Climbs

Weinreb and colleagues measured eye pressure after five minutes fully inverted. It went from 16.8 to 32.9 mmHg in healthy eyes and from 21.3 to 37.6 mmHg in eyes with glaucoma. The visual fields did not change, but the authors recommended that people with ocular hypertension or glaucoma refrain from the activity (Weinreb, 1984).

Time matters too. In a 2014 study of anesthetized surgical patients tilted only 23 degrees head down for up to five hours, eye pressure kept rising, from 18.9 mmHg at the start to about 24 mmHg in hours four and five, and fell back when the patients were laid flat. Visual function a month later was unchanged (Hoshikawa, 2014). Those were anesthetized patients, not awake people on a table, so the study shows that duration counts, not a safe limit.

Ophthalmologist Thomas Friberg wrote in 1985 that it remained uncertain whether healthy people who invert for short daily sessions over years would suffer permanent eye damage (Friberg, 1985). The sources we reviewed for this page do not settle it.

How Long Is Too Long?

No one has set a safe maximum for awake adults. We break down the timing studies, the maker guidance and the forensic cases in how long you can hang upside down.

Who Should Not Hang Upside Down

What the Manufacturer’s List Says

Teeter’s own list tells users not to invert until a licensed physician approves if they have high blood pressure, heart or circulatory conditions, glaucoma, a history of retinal detachment, a history of intracranial bleeding or stroke risk, anticoagulant use, osteoporosis, hernias, pregnancy or recent surgery, among others (Teeter). That is the manufacturer’s list, written with legal and clinical caution, so not every item is a proven contraindication. But every item on it connects to what the studies above measured: higher blood pressure, higher eye pressure, or mechanical stress on a weak spot.

If You Are on the List

Our full list, with the evidence behind each item, is in who should not use an inversion table. If you have a diagnosed condition, talk to your clinician before you invert.