How Yoga Helps Relieve Back Pain?

Yoga is one of America's most profitable holistic health care systems. Nowadays several methods such as books, tapes, and yoga classes are being used to spread the efficacy of this health care system as a beneficial alternative therapy.

Yoga, which has its roots in India, uses exercises (asanas) to relax and tone the muscles and to massage the organs, breathing techniques (pranayama) to regulate the body's energy levels, meditations to calm the mind, and relaxation postures to reduce and eliminate stress and anxiety.

Precautionary measures

Prior to taking to yoga for your back pain, you should check with your health care practitioner to make sure it's safe for you to practice yoga as part of your healing program—especially if you are over 50 or if you have worrisome symptoms like fever or unexplained weight loss.

Approach

Find an experienced teacher

Back problems are complex, so it's important to find a teacher with adequate training and as much experience as possible. A yoga therapist not only will suggest exercises but will be able to create a unique and personalized program that's appropriate for your levels of fitness, strength, and flexibility as well as your medical condition.

Proceed slowly

• When tissues are acutely inflamed or when you're feeling a lot of pain, it's important to proceed slowly. Aggressively working to improve strength or flexibility at this stage can backfire, causing even more pain, inflammation, and injury
• Try breathing exercises and a gentle asana practice as soon as the first day of pain

Balance strengthening with stretching

The yogic approach is to determine which muscles need strengthening and which ones need stretching and to design a program to address those specific needs.

Consider psychological factors

Stress, anger, and other emotions are not the sole cause of back pain but they could play a role. Hence psychotherapy as well as yogic tools such as svadhyaya (self-study) and meditation may help.