Suffering from chronic pain? Try yoga
Hatha yoga – commonly known simply as yoga – focuses on relaxation and breathing techniques, which can promote inner calm.
Yoga can help relieve symptoms for people with chronic conditions, such as back and neck pain, carpal tunnel syndrome, arthritis, and multiple sclerosis.
According to the National Headache Foundation, more than 37 million Americans suffer from migraines. To try to ease pain that can often be debilitating, sufferers often turn to remedies spanning from medication to alternative therapy. However, if you suffer from migraines, you might want to give yoga a try.
Julie Booth, a yoga instructor at Washington Health System Wilfred R. Cameron Wellness Center, has seen firsthand how practicing gentle yoga has helped some of her students find migraine relief.
“It’s not a cure, but they’ve found that hatha yoga can help reduce the frequency, duration and intensity of migraines,” said Booth, who has practiced yoga for 15 years. Hatha yoga – commonly known simply as yoga – focuses on relaxation and breathing techniques, which can promote inner calm. According to Booth, yoga can help alleviate stress by relaxing the body’s nervous system. This helps to minimize the onset and severity of migraines.
Although Booth does not suffer from migraines, she began researching the potential benefits of yoga after seeing how much pain the headaches caused several of her friends. She put her findings into practice through special workshops where she teaches specific yoga postures – known as asanas – and breathing techniques. These particular methods can prevent or delay migraines as well as ease symptoms.
In order to get the maximum benefit, Booth had a few suggestions. “It’s important to stick to gentle, restorative yoga practice,” she explained. “You should also try to practice regularly, either at home or in a class.”
Booth has found that helpful poses for persons with migraines typically include the child’s pose, seated forward bend, cobra pose, standing forward fold, and tree pose.
“A lot of these poses incorporate forward folding that draws you inward, calms you, soothes your nerves, and reduces sensory overload,” she said.
Yoga can also help relieve symptoms for people with other chronic conditions. Yoga can ease a number of ailments such as back and neck pain, carpal tunnel syndrome, arthritis, and multiple sclerosis. Jamie Thornton, a yoga instructor at the Wellness Center, observed that yoga loosens unconscious muscular gripping that may cause chronic pain. It does so by encouraging correct postural alignment.
“You line up your spine, pull your head back, and pay attention to the natural curve of your spine and neck,” she said. “And the stretching from the asanas promotes flexibility and movement, which lessens pain.”
Thornton and Booth both find that yoga’s emphasis on breathing exercises helps reduce the stress and tension that can cause or exacerbate pain. Booth, who has helped a student with multiple sclerosis find symptom relief through yoga, noted, “There probably can’t be enough said for breathing, relaxing, and being in the moment. The whole nervous system benefits when yoga helps you stay relaxed and keep your muscles long and stretched.”
For more information please visit www.wrcameronwellness.org/.