Yoga Offers Natural Relief for Back Pain
Any back pain sufferer knows just how debilitating back pain can be. A bad case of back pain isn’t just excruciatingly painful, it spills over into everything we do during the day. Even small tasks become difficult and painful, and most often our mood, energy, and well-being suffer as well.
Yoga for back pain has emerged as one of the most promising-and long-lasting-back pain therapies. Many back problems emerge from problems in the soft tissues, which means that some of the most effective treatment options often are non-surgical and non-prescriptive. Yoga therapy targeting back pain helps smooth out heal chronic tension and tightness in the soft tissues thereby often eliminating the root cause of the back pain.
A study published in 2005 in the Annals of Internal Medicine showed that people practicing yoga for back pain experienced greater pain relief than people who received a combination of exercise and knowledge of proper back care. Yoga exercises for back pain have also been recommended by the American College of Physicians and the American Pain Society as a way to treat chronic back pain.
Yoga helps people suffering from low back pain, shoulder, or neck pain in four major ways:
1. Yoga tones and strengthens weak muscles. Yoga is particularly effective for toning and strengthening the body’s core muscles, which are critical for creating proper support for the spine and giving the back greater strength and stability. By increasing core stability and improving posture, yoga exercises for back pain decrease the pressure on the spine, a key element in creating lasting back-pain relief.
2. Yoga restores flexibility to the soft tissues. Chronically tight muscles can pull on the vertebrae and tug the spine out of alignment, in turn creating pain and strain. Yoga stretches are very effective at increasing the flexibility of the soft tissues, and this in turn releases strain caused by chronically tight muscles tugging on the spine. By stretching muscles and increasing flexibility, yoga helps release the pressure and relieve back pain.
3. Yoga improves circulation. By enhancing circulation, yoga improves oxygenation to body tissues. This increases the supply of nutrients to and removal of toxins from the soft tissues around the spine. Yoga exercises are particularly effective for this, because many yoga poses alternate between compression and release of pressure, which combined with deep breathing, floods the body with oxygen-rich blood. The new influx of blood removes toxins and delivers vital nutrients to the soft tissues. For people who work at a desk all day, this is particularly useful, as sitting at a desk for long hours will restrict blood flow and compress the spine. Yoga stretches the back, lengthens and decompresses the spine, and increases the circulation to the vertebrae and vertebral discs.
4. Yoga reduces stress. Finally, yoga may help combat back pain by inducing greater relaxation. With all the stresses of everyday life, our nervous system often becomes constantly engaged in “fight or flight” mode. In this mode, our muscles-and especially those around the spine-tighten up. This constriction frequently leads to neck tension, tension headaches, and recurring back pain. Yoga therapy helps settle the mind and create greater relaxation in the body, shifting us from “fight or flight” into the rejuvenating “rest and digest” state. In this relaxed state, the body no longer fights to maintain readiness for battle, but begins to heal itself.
Of course, like any holistic mind-body approach to health, yoga offers many therapeutic effects, and these are just a few. When the spine is healthy, vital energy flows unimpeded, and we enjoy optimum well-being. For this reason, a person practicing yoga for back pain will also benefit from yoga’s effects on organ health, mood, emotional balance and general energy and well-being.
Click here to learn more about yoga exercises for back pain or download a yoga practice for back pain to experience for yourself how to relieve back pain with yoga.
