Yoga for a Healthy Back
Written by Colette Barry.
Do you know yoga is an effective lower back pain therapy? According to a study published in the Spine Journal on September 1, 2009, yoga therapy can help reduce chronic back pain and improve functional ability. Another study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine reveals that yoga therapy can be more effective in reducing low back pain symptoms than traditional exercise. Back pain might be the result of sports injuries or accidents. Sometimes poor posture, obesity, degenerative arthritis, and psychological stress can contribute to back pain, making even the simplest of movements difficult to perform. If you are suffering from back pain due to any of these reasons, regular yoga practice can have a great therapeutic effect on the back, proving to be an effective way to stretch and strengthen your back muscles.
Yoga Helps Back Pain
Yoga equips you with one of the most effective ways to treat back ailments and develop a strong back. Yoga works to strengthen major muscle groups that support the spine. The gentle stretching postures increase blood supply to the tissues supporting the spine, which helps improve health of the muscles along the spine for better posture in a safe and gentle way. These postures help remove toxins, improve blood circulation, and deliver nutrients to muscle fibers.
Yoga postures increase flexibility in the hip and shoulders, which reduces burden on your back while increasing flexibility of the back muscles and those along your spine that allows it to rotate properly. Healthy hip alignment allow the spine to rest on a solid foundation.
Yoga primarily focuses on connecting breath with movement, which lays emphasis on mobility and alignment and helps improve body awareness and spinal stability. Gradually, you become more conscious of specific movements that might contribute to back pain.
Spine lengthening poses such as back-bends and revolving poses helps maintain correct alignment of the vertebrae, making sure that you are not placing undue stress on the back. By lengthening the spine you are maintaining flexibility in the back and ensuring a good posture. A flexible back helps maintain erect posture, improve circulation to the brain, and ensure strong and clear nervous system pathways.
Different yoga poses stretch and strengthen hip, leg, and back muscles and improve abdominal muscle strength, thus supporting the lower back, facilitating more fluid carriage, thus helping you identify tension and stress in the back muscles. Once you are able to recognize the tension, you can work toward releasing it before the back and neck muscles become stiff and tight.
Yoga postures not only heal injuries, increase strength and flexibility, but also prevent chances of injury and illness. A study conducted by West Virginia University AND funded by the National Institutes of Health claims that yoga therapy helps those suffering from chronic low back pain problems manage pain and depression contrary to those people undergoing conventional treatment.
Make it a routine to practice yoga every day to pacify the mind, ease tension in the spine, recover from stress reactions, and prevent future flare-ups. If you can integrate specific breathing techniques with gentle yoga poses, you can release tension in the muscles and soften the stiff connective tissue, which helps reduce those nagging sore spots in the back.
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