Back Pain

If you have back pain or neck pain, you have a lot of company. About 8 in 10 people experience back pain at some point in their lives. Back or neck pain often goes away in time—60% of back pain is gone within a week and 95% within 12 weeks. But if your pain persists for three months or more, it’s considered chronic pain, a tricky-to-treat condition that could be due to injury, overuse, arthritis, or spinal problems.

4 Ways Yoga Relieves Low Back Pain

(ISTOCKPHOTO)

Yoga is one of the nondrug, nonsurgical therapies that has been shown to benefit back pain. In 2005 a study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine found that a yoga program was more effective in treating low back pain than another exercise regimen or educating yourself about proper back care. In October 2007 the American College of Physicians and the American Pain Society released guidelines that recommend therapies that include massage, Viniyoga (a gentle, therapeutic yoga style), acupuncture, and spinal manipulation for persistent back pain.

More about alternative therapies

• How Yoga Can Improve Your Health
• How the Mind Controls Pain
• Meditation Can Release and Relieve Pain
• 3 Pain Conditions Meditation Can Help

According to Timothy McCall, MD, the medical editor of Yoga Journal, yoga can enable patients to do the following.

• Strengthen weak muscles
• Increase flexibility
• Improve oxygenation to body tissue
• Shift the balance of the autonomic nervous system from the sympathetic "fight or flight" response to the parasympathetic "rest and digest" state

All of those changes can help support the musculoskeletal system and bring pain relief, but beyond those physical improvements, Dr. McCall believes that the greatest benefit yoga can provide to patients is in their mind.