How Yoga Can Help Chronic Pain

Building a yoga practice is a great way to get in touch with your body, especially the parts that hurt. If you've never done yoga before, make sure that you start with a class for beginners and let the teacher know that you're new to this. They can observe you and offer you modified poses and movements to lessen the risk of exacerbating your pain. 

Mind-Body Effect

Yoga is a slow series of movements that you can modify each step of the way to learn to move through your pain. One of the big challenges of chronic pain is that you favor the side or area that hurts, and, in the process, you twist what was working out of shape and start to have more pain in that part of your body. To reduce this risk, a gentle yoga class will introduce you to new moves while helping you bring your body and your mind into alignment and suddenly you realize you're moving normally. Gentle yoga poses correct your physical alignment without having to think about it.

Prescribed Yoga

There are a time and a place for prescription drugs, particularly right after an accident or injury. However, many sufferers are concerned about the long-term effects of these medications. If you want to stop taking pain meds quickly or avoid them altogether, a prescribed yoga class with a teacher who has experience in injury recovery can help. Some doctors and many patients prefer to avoid the risks associated with prescription painkillers such as car accidents and addiction.

Reducing Pressure on Your Joints

Many people with back injuries struggle to find an exercise program that works. There may be a fear of intensifying the existing injury or re-injuring an old strain. Yoga movements are by their nature extremely slow, so the risk of re-injury is slight. As long as you discuss your condition with your teacher and let them know if any movement is increasing your pain level, you can get instruction on a modified movement. If you've got a back injury or joint damage, gentle yoga can help by expanding the space inside the joint and along your spine, taking the pressure off the nerves.

Arthritis

Both osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis are painful because of inflammation in the joint. While osteoarthritis hurts, it's rheumatoid arthritis that causes joint malformation that many think of when they think of arthritic damage. However, the inflammation and pain of both types of arthritis can be reduced with a yoga practice. If your finger joints can't tolerate the weight, you may not be able to do some floor poses. However, there are many moves that sufferers can still participate in to reduce their pain level and joint swelling. In addition, by coupling yoga with guided meditation, you can not only improve the condition of your joints, but you can also protect your brain from the stress of chronic pain.

Chronic pain hurts. Even worse, it makes it impossible to fully commit to a new project or course of study because a part of your brain is always busy trying to manage the pain.

Consider taking beginner's yoga with a teacher who has worked with chronic pain sufferers to bring your body back into healthy alignment and reduce your inflammation.