Yoga, Health, and Wellness Articles + Recipes

Whether you suffer occasional back pain or are recovering from an injury, yoga is an excellent modality to keep your spine healthy. Spending time giving your back some love will ease pain, relax tight muscles, and help maintain excellent posture. This week we’re featuring some great new classes to do just that.

Back pain impacts millions of people at one time or another, whether from a specific injury or from long-term poor posture. Most of us sit too much and as a result, our spines become compressed, our muscles and connective tissue tighten, and then we are hurting. This week, we have six practices designed to give you a spinal tune-up and help prevent future pain. We tend to store emotions in our tissues and if we don’t create a release, physical tightness and strain can result. Whatever is causing your back pain is individual. How yoga helps is universal.

Who else spent months sprawled on the couch bingeing television and hours perched in front of the computer zooming with friends and family? During quarantine, most of us found ourselves more sedentary than usual. Prolonged sitting does a number on our posture, and our shoulders round forward, our necks grow stiff, and our posture begins to slump. Not only does our body fall out of alignment, but we can become more closed off emotionally. The inner reflects the outer. This week, we’re focusing on asanas (postures) that loosen up the shoulders, relax the throat and neck, and create more spaciousness in our spines. When we focus on relieving stress and tension that lurks around the neck and shoulders, we can alleviate pain. Practices focused on the upper body create strength and mobility and encourage proper posture. They also go deeper within and benefit the subtle body, where our chakras reside.

If you deal with back pain, yoga might be exactly what you need. Yoga is a mind-body remedy that helps efficiently treat back pain and stress that accompanies it. Here, we’ll discuss yoga poses that can reduce pain, relax, and strengthen your body. There can be tens of different causes of back pain; poor posture, a weak core, and sedentary work are among them. It’s always essential to find out contributing factors and reasons for pain so that you can treat it the right way and prevent it from happening again. However, in most situations, practicing even basic yoga poses will relieve the strain and pain in your back. In 2017 a study was conducted and it proved that yoga is really beneficial for back pain. A group of 320 adults was assessed to see whether yoga was efficient as physical therapy for reducing chronic back pain. Participants in both physical therapy and yoga classes showed analogous improvements in pain levels.

Have you ever noticed that when you’re worried about money, all of a sudden, your lower back “goes out?” Or you were reprimanded at work and a crick appears in your neck? Of course, suffering a physical injury or the culmination of a lifetime of poor posture causes pain, but what’s happening internally is often the root of external pain. Yoga’s three-pronged focus on physical, emotional, and mental wellness offers back pain relief for every layer of your being. In yogic philosophy, the subtle body is a blueprint of the physical one. The subtle body consists of energy or prana which flows through channels called Nadis. The primary Nadi, the Sushumna Nadi, runs from the Muladhara (Root) Chakra at the base of the spine to the Sahasrara (Crown) Chakra at the crown of the head. Keeping the seven primary Chakras or energy centers balanced is essential to keep our prana flowing freely so we feel invigorated, calm, and pain-free.

The question isn’t whether you’ve experienced back pain, but whether you are one of the lucky ones who haven’t. Millions of people around the world suffer from aches and injuries to their backs on a regular basis. The good news is that yoga helps with more than the muscles and ligaments, which may be strained, sprained, or simply unbalanced. Often, the root of the pain is grounded in emotional or mental issues and yoga addresses the physical, emotional, and mental causes When you are hurting, ranging from a mild inconvenience to complete incapacitation, it is important to distinguish between acute pain and chronic pain. Acute back pain is intense and lasts from a few days to several weeks. It’s generally due to a fall, lifting a heavy object improperly, a car accident, and resolves within six to eight weeks. During this stage, rest and apply heat and ice to ease inflammation until you are ready to perform gentle exercise. Walking is an excellent option. Chronic pain lasts longer than three months and is more complicated. Yoga can provide temporary and potentially permanent relief. Our mind and body work together and cannot be separated. Only yoga restores harmony on every level. Physically, in addition to stretching and strengthening the spine, yoga helps you:

Back pain is a serious problem in the modern day with 80% of Americans expected to experience it at some point during their lifetime. So, any activity that can help to guard against it should be welcomed right? Well, this is exactly what yoga can do. As the flexibility and increased range of motion it gives you can really take the pressure and strain off your back throughout the day. While the core strength you’ll gain will keep your back better supported while also improving your posture. However, despite these benefits most yoga classes continue to be dominated by women as many men remain reluctant to give it a try. But why is this?

If you’ve ever suffered from back pain, be it a fleeting twinge or a long-term debilitating condition, you know how much it can impact your life. A healthy spine and strong core are essential for feeling your best physically, emotionally, and mentally. Luckily, yoga can help. This week we’re excited to bring you four classes specifically designed to alleviate back pain and techniques to prevent it in the future. Often we think of back pain as a purely physical issue, but it’s not so simple. Back pain often doesn’t have a physical cause, but instead is caused by the manifestation of mental or emotional stress. Yes, injuries to your spinal discs, spraining or straining muscles and ligaments, or suffering a specific injury to your back or neck is physical. In yoga, we address not just the physical body, but also the subtle body, which is a blueprint of the physical one.

Over 50% of all working Americans report having back pain each year. That's 5 out of 10 of you will have back pain this year! As a yoga therapist and a teacher of thousands of public yoga classes over the last 16 years I see many people with poor alignment, and the inability to flex, extend and twist their spine normally.

Yoga postures that can be practiced during pregnancy depend on the mother's physical condition and pregnancy stage. To determine whether it is appropriate for pregnant women to yoga, it is recommended that you first consult your obstetrician. During pregnancy, it is advisable to practice private prenatal yoga in the second trimester (from the fourth month to the eighth month) and consult your doctor in advance. Under the guidance of professional teachers, pregnancy yoga is safe. It enhances the overall flexibility of the body and strengthen the pelvic floor muscles, which are all vital in the delivery process. What’s more is that practicing these poses increases the body's blood circulation, stimulates the various organs and glands, and improves blood flow.

When your back hurts, everything in your life is impacted. If you’ve ever experienced spasms or intense pain anywhere along your spine, you know what we mean. We’re here to help break down a few of the reasons back pain manifests and also to suggest how incorporating yoga can keep your spine healthy and prevent future back pain.