Do you have any suggestions for a student who has dizziness when turning the head too quickly. She also tested herself with slight inversion (kneeling head to ground with hips gently raised) and was dizzy then. Thank you for your enthusiastic answers to so many questions A
I would inquire if she has low blood pressure. If so that would explain it. If this is the case she should transition more slowly in inversions and learn to elongate her neck in all poses especially twists and backbends. Elongation not only means longer neck but also move the skull up and the shoulders back and down simultaneously in all poses.
If this were not the case then I would suspect narrowing of the vertebral arteries (look this up in a good anatomy atlas like Clemente or Netter), which can come from a misaligned vertebra or from narrowing of the disc spaces. The former can be corrected by the sternocleidomastoid strengthening exercise in my book page 180. For narrowing of the disc space she needs to watch her hydration and also follow guidelines for elongating the cervical region cited above.
Comment on Dizziness - A couple of years ago I found myself
experiencing unaccountable spells of dizziness. From my description of my
symptoms, my internist diagnosed my condition as “benign positional
vertigo,” which occurs when a tiny particle lodges in the inner ear. The
"cure," which I experienced after a yoga practice, is inversion! Basically,
you have to invert and sometimes turn the head in such a way as to dislodge
the particle. Of course, the person in question here may be experiencing
dizziness from another cause and should be checked by a doctor, but I
thought you might be interested to know of this diagnosis. Namaste, C