Best Poses for Pain Sufferers

Yoga has proven to be extremely useful to reduce body pain. One can tackle pain both physiologically and psychologically with regular yoga practice. Often, body pain is due to several reasons including prolonged screen time, stress, anxiety, and unhealthy dietary and sleep patterns etc. And what sets yoga apart from most other exercise programs is that it places a great emphasis on achieving physical as well as mental fitness.

Can yoga help with chronic pain?

There have been several medical studies which indicate that yoga can be effective in dealing with chronic pain issues such as fibromyalgia, arthritis, migraine, lower back pain, and several other chronic pain conditions. According to a study that appeared in Annals of Internal Medicine, 313 people with chronic low back pain, who took a weekly yoga class, had enhanced mobility when compared with standard medical treatment for the condition.

Research also suggests that yoga responds to chronic pain on a neural level, improving the endurance of grey matter in the brain. Another meta-analysis of 17 studies conducted on over 1,600 volunteers suggests that yoga can be extremely beneficial to improve daily function among people with spinal and lower back pain issues. Moreover, yoga also improves mood and psychosocial well-being.

Thus, it offers a holistic care to an individual.

Poses for Pain Sufferers

1. Downward Dog: It calms the brain and helps in stress and depression. A must yoga for arthritis, headaches, fatigue, and back pain. It has good results for high blood pressure and asthma too.

2. Child Pose: Child Pose is a beginner yoga pose often practiced and suggested by trainers for lower back pain. This posture takes the pressure from your lower back by stretching and aligning the spine, giving your body a nice stretch. Child pose helps in promoting flexibility, stress relief and helps circulation to the muscles, joints and disks of the back.

3. Diaphragmatic (Belly) Breathing:  This pose has a ton of benefits for people who complain of health issues and pain. Our nervous system calms down when we breathe with our diaphragm. In doing so our body deals smoothly with our aches and pain. Belly breathing helps in strengthening our diaphragm which in turn reduces depression and anxiety related issues, helps in lowering our blood pressure and improves core muscle stability.

4. Cat/Cow Pose : The Cat/Cow Pose is an excellent way to warm up the spine. Talking about the physical benefits of this pose it helps in toning the gastrointestinal tract. This posture is helpful for relieving menstrual cramps and lower back pain. Cat/Cow Pose increases flexibility of the neck, shoulders, and spine. The movement also stretches the muscles of the hips, back, abdomen, chest, and lungs.

5. Supine Twist : This posture is extremely beneficial for entire back pain. It also helps in increasing the flexibility of the hips, upper back shoulders, and ribs. Adding to it, this pose does wonder for painful bladder syndrome.

6. Leg up the wall: A wonderful posture for tired feet and it also helps in easing lower back pain, headaches, and fibromyalgia.

There are many other postures that will surely help you in relieving pain and aches. Next time do consult your trainer or check our blogs for more inputs. And remember miracles don’t happen in just a day so it’s very important for every individual to be determined, giving the body the time to heal with these brilliant yoga positions.  Definitely practice and patience is the key to success and happiness.

Nida Zakaria

Everyday Yoga Poses

How to practice yoga when you have no time…..

Consistency is key with yoga, and one of the best ways to skill-up your yoga practice is to build in key poses into your daily routine.

Some days, we’re busier than others - and even with the best intentions, somewhere between the morning coffee, the nine o’clock meeting, the school run, and the mad dash for the train (or the mad boot-up of your laptop at 8:59, if you’re working from home), that forty-five minute slot we had planned for our morning Vinyasa Flow session gets completely lost.

So when you don’t have time for a full session, but you still want a little time and space to be present on your mat, why not have some go-to poses up your sleeve?

Here are some of our favourite poses, which strike the balance between building core strength, improving flexibility, and balancing the mind. As always, we prefer to start the day right with these poses as soon as we wake up in the mornings - but some prefer to switch this up and have an evening yoga session instead. 

Whichever way is best for you, by practising these simple poses at least once a day, you’ll soon be on the path to developing better balance in your Muscle, Movement and Mood.

Pose 1: Downward Dog

A staple, and one of the best poses to start the day with. Downward Dog is an inversion, meaning the head is below the heart in this position - which changes up the direction of blood flow. Increased blood flow to the head stimulates the mind, and kicks the brain into action.Downward Dog will also help you develop flexibility - try pedalling your feet to really work the stretch into your calf muscles.

Our top tip? Spread the fingers wide, and keep the whole palm of your hand pressed to the floor to send the hips up and away from you. 

Pose 2: Pigeon Pose

Pigeon pose is another of our everyday favourites - it’s a seriously effective hip opener and will do wonders for tight glutes. Start in Downward Dog, then raise one leg up and back, before sweeping it directly underneath the chest, with the knee bent beneath your rib cage. You may wish to stay upright at first, then slowly sink the chest towards the bent knee you have underneath your body. For an extra challenge, try gradually sinking all the way down so that your forehead rests on the floor. Stay here for at least two minutes, then repeat with the other leg in front.

This is a slow and steady pose - never rush into it, and make sure your limbs are sufficiently warm from the Downward Dog position first. As well as strengthening the elasticity in the muscles, you’ll also feel a really release of trapped energy and tension - a great endorphin booster.

Pose 3: Forward Fold

After coming back to Downward Dog following your Pigeon Pose on both sides, walk your hands back towards your feet. Once you’ve got your weight firmly back on two feet, remain hanging forward. Sway side to side a little, to stretch out both sides of your waist - you can either keep the hands hand loose, or gently fold the arms. After about one minute, slowly begin to roll the body upward - imagine you are stacking each vertebrae of your spine, one-by-one, until you reach a full standing position. Roll the shoulders back, and let the hands hang loosely at your sides, with your knees soft.

This is a great pose to remind you of your spine alignment - take notice of any points as you roll upward where you wobble slightly, as this can indicate a tendency to lean your weight more on one side than the other. Try to come up as evenly and slowly as you can - control is key for getting the full benefits of this pose.

Breathe through the pose - we often like to take a deep breath in, then breathe out while we roll upward. 

Pose 4: Warrior I

Once standing, step into a lunge, keeping your back leg straight and if you can, your back heel remaining flat on the ground. Take the arms up to reach towards the sky and hold, imagining you are stretching further and further upward. To keep the shoulders and neck in line, it can often help to visualise a piece of silk extended from the crown of your head - like a puppet string - pulling you gently up. Hold this position for a minute, then step the feet together and repeat the pose on the other side.

Warrior I is a great pose for stimulating the blood flow and building core strength. Keeping as still as possible is the challenge here. It’s also a great place to set your intentions of the day from - let your heart smile outward as you take stock of your goals for the day.

Pose 5:’Corpse’ Pose, or Savasana

Finally, come back down to lie on your back, with your palms facing upward and your knees relaxed. You could put a cushion, blanket or yoga block beneath your knees or beneath the small of the back for support here. 

You have stimulated the movement in the body, and begun to consider your intentions for the day. Savasana is that space in which you can consolidate these intentions - it’s the peace and the quiet before the business of the day begins. Allow yourself ten minutes in this pose - and if you often find you struggle to give time for being still, as many of us do in our busy lives, try to see this time as an an investment: to reflect, to listen to your thoughts and your emotions and be aware of your emotional state, to allow ideas and creativity to be renewed - which will only mean you are able to use your time in the day more efficiently. If you invest

this ten minutes now, you’ll save three, four, or five times the minutes later in the day through being more intent on your personal goals, more grateful for what you have already achieved.

We love to double-up Savasana pose with a ten minute guided meditation - try our guided Meditation For Building Trust, or have a look at the meditations available on apps like Calm or Headspace.

What next?

Try to dedicate fifteen minutes for practising these poses, each day. Our top tip? Try to do the poses in the same order each day - this will create a failsafe routine that you can fall back on when times get busy, that’s committed to your muscle memory. Building muscle memory helps the body to carry on the process of strengthening the muscles all on its own - keeping you fit for life. Repeating the poses in the same order will also help you spot and track changes to your strength and comfort each day, as you move through each pose.

And on those days when you do have the time to give yourself more space to practise, why not take a look at our timetable? We have a range of online and in-studio classes, which will help you build your repertoire of poses.