Yoga Offers Natural Relief for Back Pain

Back pain isn’t just a pain problem, it influences our overall mood, energy and well-being as well. If you have ever had a bad case of back pain, you know just how debilitating it can be. Even small, everyday activities become painful, and everything you do during the day is impacted.

Yoga exercises for low back pain, upper back, shoulder or neck pain have recently drawn researchers’ attention as a natural treatment for back pain. Back pain often arises from chronic tension and imbalances in the soft tissues, and as a consequence, surgery and prescription drugs are relatively ineffective at resolving back problems. Yoga offers promise as an alternative treatment for back pain, precisely because it’s so effective at relieving tension and stiffness in the soft tissues, thereby targeting many back pain problems at their root.

In 2005, a study in the Annals of Internal Medicine reported that study participants who regularly practiced yoga stretches for back pain experienced more effective pain relief than did study participants who received instructions in proper back care. Recently, the American College of Physicians and the American Pain Society have recommended yoga therapy as a promising alternative modality for treating chronic back pain.

Yoga helps people suffering from low back pain, shoulder, or neck pain in four major ways:

1. Yoga strengthens weak muscles, particularly the core muscles. Yoga for back pain strengthens weak muscles by engaging and toning the body’s core posture muscles, thereby giving the spine’s muscular support system greater strength and stability. In this way, yoga for back pain takes the pressure off the spine and improves posture. This is a key element in lasting back-pain relief.

2. Yoga improves flexibility. Yoga stretches for back pain increase flexibility in a balanced manner, in turn removing the strain caused by muscle groups tugging the spine out of alignment. Many back pain problems arise from too-tight muscles pulling on vertebrae at unnatural angles. Yoga offers natural back pain relief by stretching out these muscles, relieving the pressure.

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 calms mind and body and releases stress. Chronic stress can cause our nervous system to be trapped in “fight or flight” mode, in which the muscles and soft tissues become chronically tense. Chronic tightness, particularly in the back, shoulders, and neck often underlines chronic bank pain, neck tension, or even migraine headaches. Yoga shifts the body out of the “fight or flight” mode into a parasympathetic response, a rejuvenating “rest and digest” state in which the body lets go of tension patterns and naturally begins to heal itself.

The beauty of any holistic approach to health, such as yoga, is that it offers therapeutic side benefits, not side effects. Yoga frees the flow of vital energy in the body, increasing the overall health of the body. For this reason, even if you start practicing yoga to get relief from back pain , you may also find that you experience benefits in terms of improved organ health, better mood, greater emotional balance and overall greater happiness 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.