Yoga for Back Pain

(August 12, 2008)

hi, I'm Karthikeyan. I have chronic back pain and neck pain. Kindly suggest any yoga exercises.

Being a software engineer, you have a stagnant life style wherein you have to sit in one position all day long to accomplish your work. This posture of yours is prone to intense back and shoulder pain which can be treated efficiently with yoga. All you need to do is practice yoga exercises for quite sometime daily. This would provide relief from the stiffness in the back region which causes acute back pain and would stop it from creating complications in the future.

Various asanas of yoga should be carried out in sequence so that body can enjoy great health and benefit from the various postures which provide freedom from the acute back pain. Yoga is a mind body exercise which supports the cognitive development and at the same time provides freedom from the excessive stress and strain caused due to hectic life style.

Yoga shows considerable results as compared to traditional methods of exercise which may consume great time of the individual and doesn't promise assured results. You can always start with Viniyoga which is easy to learn and adapt to.

It is important for you to understand which postures of yoga will work for you before you directly start using them for your back pain. Forward bend exercise of yoga like uttanasana helps to reduce the fat deposited near the back and the belly region. Pain is caused when these muscles get fibrosis and they become stiff and cause pain. Yoga provides movement and flexibility to the stiff muscles and the bending postures like the standing forward bend and triangle bend which involve bending from the sides provides freedom from the back pain

Chakrasana (wheel pose) and ardh chakrasana (semi wheel pose) provide exercise to the muscles of the shoulders as they remove stiffness in the upper back region. Triangle posture (Trikonasana) provides adequate stretch to the spine and the surrounding muscles.

Tadasana (mountain pose) helps you stand straight without affecting any other organs of the body. It works well for the alignment of the spine and also provides support to the pelvic region. The pelvic tilts provide stabilization to the body and relieves from the back pain. Supine spinal twist is the one which is associated with the rotation movements of the belly region which loosens the muscles of the belly region and relieves the pain. The cobra pose and the downward facing dog pose work wonders for the treatment of back pain but these exercises are tricky and should be done only after adequate practice.

Submitted by R J on August 12, 2008 at 07:40