yoga

Yoga Has Benefits Similar To PT For Low Back Pain

/ Thomas Cohn, MD

Yoga Chronic Back PainNew research suggests that yoga can be as beneficial as physical therapy in reducing chronic low back pain, according to a study out of Boston.

Both yoga and physical therapy have similar mechanisms in that they work to increase our range of motion and strengthen areas of our bodies that may not always get worked, but this study wanted to see if yoga could potentially be a substitute for targeted PT for chronic low back pain.

“We know that yoga is effective, we know that PT is effective, but we don’t know their comparative effectiveness,” said Robert Saper, director of integrative medicine at Boston Medical Center. “To get a complementary health practice into mainstream health care, I would say that (at minimum) it has to be as effective as the conventional therapy, and perhaps offer other benefits, like cost-effectiveness.”

How Effective Is Yoga For Back Pain?

Due to its obvious cost-effectiveness, researchers wanted to learn just how effective yoga was at treating chronic low back pain compared to physical therapy. They started by getting 320 patients in the Boston area who suffered from chronic low back pain with no obvious anatomic cause. The average pain score from their pain was a 7 out of 10, and nearly 75 percent reported taking pain medications for their discomfort.

Patients were then split into one of three groups:

  • Yoga
  • Physical Therapy
  • Education

The yoga group attended a 75-minute yoga session each week and were given tools to perform some yoga exercises on their own in their home throughout the week. The PT group consisted of 15, hour-long sessions of individualized physical therapy, while the education group received a comprehensive book on back pain. The yoga and PT sessions lasted for 12 weeks, then patients were tracked for a year, with random sessions assigned throughout the year.

At the end of the study, researchers noted that individuals in the yoga and PT groups reported similar levels of function, and both scores were higher than the education group. Individuals in the yoga group also reported high levels of satisfaction with their pain and their progress. Yoga also proved to be a pretty safe option, with only a few patients reporting flare ups of pain during or after a yoga session.

Saper concluded that while the findings were interesting, patients received a highly targeted form of yoga, and individuals with chronic low back pain may not see similar results if they just head to the yoga studio down the street. He hopes to conduct more studies down the road to better understand the best yoga techniques for handling spine pain.

Yoga And Acupuncture May Ease Chronic Pain Symptoms

/ Thomas Cohn, MD

Yoga Chronic Pain MinnesotaNew research published in the journal Mayo Clinic Proceedings suggests that activities like yoga, Tai Chi and other complementary health approaches may help alleviate discomfort associated with some types of chronic pain.

Lead author Richard L. Nahin, Ph.D., of the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), suggested that activity options like Tai Chi and yoga may help prevent symptoms from chronic pain, especially when paired with other treatment options like regular exercise, a healthy diet and certain pain medications.

“For many Americans who suffer from chronic pain, medications may not completely relieve pain and can produce unwanted side effects,” said Nahin. “As a result, many people may turn to non-drug approaches to help manage their pain.”

Chronic Pain, Yoga and Tai Chi

For their study, researchers identified 150 randomized, controlled U.S. clinical trials conducted over the past 50 years that examined non-drug approaches to chronic pain. Specifically, the research targeted five common sources of pain, which were:

The treatment techniques analyzed were considered effective if patients reported that it led to improvements in pain severity and pain-related disability/function. After looking at the data, researchers found that both yoga and acupuncture were safe and effective for chronic back pain, while Tai Chi and acupuncture may be most beneficial for patients with osteoarthritis of the knee. Massage therapy was also somewhat beneficial for patients suffering from neck pain when it was managed with one-hour sessions 2-3 times per week.

“These data can equip providers and patients with the information they need to have informed conversations regarding nondrug approaches for treatment of specific pain conditions,” said David Shurtleff, Ph.D., deputy director of NCCIH. “It’s important that continued research explores how these approaches actually work and whether these findings apply broadly in diverse clinical settings and patient populations.”

At the end of the day, the study paints an interesting picture at some non-drug techniques that can be used in conjunction with other lifestyle interventions to provide relief. Simply getting massages or doing some yoga isn’t going to fully rid you of your pain, but it can play an important role in a total pain management plan. There is no magic pill to cure many of the above conditions, but with a multifaceted approach that involves treatment with a physical medicine pain specialist, relief can be found.

Yoga and Pain Relief

/ Thomas Cohn, MD

yoga poseNote: this is a guest post by yoga instructor, Lynn Shuck.

As a yoga instructor, I’m expected to say that yoga can relieve pain.  And I truly believe it can.  But I do urge caution when approaching yoga for pain relief because, in fact, a class that moves too fast, or an instructor who pushes you beyond your limits can actually cause pain rather than relieve it.  With good instruction and personal attention, yoga can most decidedly help with pain relief by bringing the muscles and skeleton into their natural balance.

It’s All About Skeletal Alignment

When the skeleton is aligned, the muscles work in tandem the way they are intended.  If some muscles get overworked through habitual movement patterns, other muscles will stop doing their jobs and weaken.  Those tight muscles can bring the skeleton out of alignment (picture the person who sits at a computer all day and becomes hunched over, chin thrust forward). If those patterns are repeated on the yoga mat, tight muscles will just continue to overwork and the skeleton will not be supported any differently than it already is.

Imbalance can also occur starting with the skeleton.  Shin bones that bow back affect everything above the legs, tipping the thighs and pelvis out of alignment, which then impacts the spine.  A broken bone that doesn’t heal correctly or an accident that impacts any part of the skeleton will invariably affect the way the muscles work as well.  If the skeleton isn’t upright, muscles will do their best to hold up the body any way they can.

Fixing Imbalances

As an Eischens Yoga instructor and yoga therapist, I look for imbalances such as:

  • Tight, overly developed muscles
  • Bones that don’t stack properly
  • Collapsed or locked joints
  • Constriction in the breath

When a student wants to use yoga for pain relief, my intention is to keep the body from going further out of balance.  Often, using simple, easily accessible asanas, we can bring the body back to better alignment – thus reducing pain and tension. 

Uttanasana

As an example, Uttanasana is a simple forward fold commonly taught in most classes.  Sometimes, hip and low back pain can be addressed using this pose.  If I observe thighbones that sit too far away from the mid-line of the body, I might have the client roll up a towel to about 2 or 3” wide.  They would place the roll between the legs at the top of the thighs near the groin.  Pressing firmly into the towel at the top of the thighs without rolling onto the inside edges of the feet, I will then have the client perform Uttanasana, moving down and up in a limited range of motion several times, continually pressing into the towel.  When finished, the legs will usually come into better positioning in the hip sockets reducing hip and back pain momentarily.  The more regularly these muscles are used to re-align the thighbones, the longer the body will maintain this new positioning.  I refer to this as using effort in the pose to create effortlessness after the pose.

Utilizing yoga for pain relief requires understanding the physical imbalances, and then using asana to bring the body back into balance.  Practicing yoga without awareness may well be counter-productive, so find a teacher who specializes in pain relief and then trust your own experience.  Yoga shouldn’t hurt; it should make you feel better.

Lynn ShuckAuthor Bio:

Lynn Shuck is a certified Eischens Yoga Instructor.  She has been practicing yoga for nearly 25 years, and has been teaching yoga since 1996.  Her training with Roger Eischens led her to work specifically with alignment as well as injury recovery/prevention. From 1998 to 2011, she led workshops and classes throughout the Detroit metro-area.  Lynn is known for her keen eye for individual movement patterns, as well as her ability to bring yoga to all kinds of people:  experienced and beginning yogis, athletes, weekend warriors, and those who think they are too stiff for yoga.  Lynn relocated to Minnesota in 2011.