With long stints sitting behind a desk or behind the wheel, it’s no wonder back pain has become a regular feature of today’s hectic lifestyle. But just incorporating a few yoga moves or making time for a few stretches in your day can go along way to loosening up your back and your life.

Yoga experts often say that yoga heals sore and injured back muscles reducing recovery time, preventing re-injury and reducing the risk of disability.

The physical benefits of yoga are numerous and one area where it is quickly gaining popularity is as a tool for combating back pain. Yoga can stretch and strengthen muscles to prevent and relieve back pain and tension and it can play an ongoing role in back care maintenance. Certain yoga styles can also assist back care on other levels by transforming emotions, enhancing positive thinking and creating deep experiences of peace and stillness. Perhaps it is because yoga has the potential of working so holistically that it can be so successful in the treatment of back pain.

Back problems are widespread and generally are under-acknowledged. Up to 80 per cent of the world’s population (especially in Western countries) suffers from back pain. In Australia, back pain is the third most common cause for taking days off work after headaches and the common cold. Moreover, anywhere between 50 per cent and 90 per cent of people who get back pain have repeat occurrences.

There is a lack of research on the impact of yoga on back pain but what studies there are show a promising correlation. A survey in a US magazine in 1985 showed 96 per cent of respondents who practised yoga reported relief from persistent back pain, compared to 23 per cent who saw neurosurgeons. A 2004 study on Hatha yoga demonstrated it could benefit individuals with chronic lower back pain (CLBP). A 2005 study showed Iyengar yoga was more effective than an educational program in treating functional ability, reducing pain intensity and reducing the use of pain medication among people with CLBP.

In an article in the Annals of Internal Medicine, researchers showed that Viniyoga reduced CLBP and increased movement function more quickly and had longer lasting benefits than conventional exercise or with the use of a back pain self-help book. The researchers believed yoga instilled a sense of relaxation and increased each individual’s awareness of how they sat, stood and walked. Dr Karen Sherman, one of the researchers, said: “The breathing … component of yoga makes people more conscious of their bodies and of ways they move that might contribute to their back problems.” Some forms of yoga are particularly effective at increasing body awareness and retraining people to understand the limitations of their body and encouraging them to have good ongoing posture.

An Australian Dru yoga survey in 2005 showed over 84 per cent of practitioners experienced decreases in back pain with 44 per cent experiencing a strong improvement. Up to 90 per cent of those participants also noticed greater flexibility of the joints and spine and increased levels of strength — all important factors in ongoing back care.

Yoga experts often say yoga heals sore and injured back muscles reducing recovery time, preventing re-injury and reducing the risk of disability. Yoga can also act as a preventative, which is crucial as we spend so much time sitting in positions that compress the spine. A regular yoga practice improves posture and body mechanics and keeps the spine in proper alignment by rebalancing the underworked and the overworked muscles in the body (especially the postural ones). Unlike many other forms of exercise, yoga helps stretch and strengthen both sides of the body equally.

 

However, the effectiveness of yoga to treat back pain will depend on the yoga style. For instance, in Dru yoga the individual often holds gentle poses for only short periods of time. Certain muscles are flexed while others are stretched promoting relaxation and flexibility in muscles and joints. Dru also uses other techniques to bring balance to other aspects of an individual (the mind and emotions), which might help to mitigate back pain. Viniyoga yoga is another gentle, therapeutically oriented style of yoga that is quite popular, especially in the US.

Iyengar yoga therapy is said to be able to progressively rehabilitate back pain by addressing imbalances in the musculoskeletal system that affect spinal alignment and posture. This style of yoga uses a wide range of postures and supportive props to enhance alignment, flexibility, mobility and stability in all muscles and joints that affect spinal alignment and posture. Researches say: “The more active corrective phase of Iyengar yoga is consistent with current sports medicine approaches to lower back pain therapy.” When considering yoga to treat back pain it is important to note that some of the strenuous and faster paced forms of yoga may not be suitable.

 

See the back of pain

UK physiotherapist and Dru yoga consultant Ruth Boaler tells us seven reasons why yoga is good for our backs.

Neutral pelvis — By far the most common cause of back pain is poor posture. When the body is properly aligned, the pelvis is in a neutral position and the spine retains its natural curves. Yoga postures that encourage correct posture are Tadasana, Cat, and the Dru Chair of the Heart.

Segmental stiffness — The spine stiffens and compresses from inactivity such as sitting for long periods. The intervertebral discs lose water and joints tighten up. Yoga opens and decompresses these squashed intevertebral discs especially in the lower back. Some people with back pain instinctively squat as this position fans out those discs. Lying down in Savasana also decompresses the spine.

Extension/flexion of the spine — Forward bends and back bends decompress the spine and when alternated are actually the most efficient movement to hydrate discs. The backward bending asanas (postures), in particular, commonly correct any distortion or bulging in the intervertebral discs and can often ease related symptoms such as sciatica.

Importantly, daily flexion/extension delivers nutrition to the discs, which rely on movement for their health. Back bends are especially important because of our tendency to sit and lean forward, such as when we are sitting at desks. Try Sun Salutes, Cobra, Sphinx and Dru Ebr1.

Core stability — Core stability is created by a cylinder of deep postural muscles (the diaphragm, pelvic floor, transversus abdominus, lumbar multifidus and psoas major) that stablise and support the body keeping your natural curves and posture. If these are working inefficiently then other muscles can get short and tight causing misalignments and perpetuating back problems. Every yoga posture, but especially standing and balancing asanas, can be done with core awareness. Experiment with Cat, Locust, Cobra or the Dru flowing triangle, which has a strong emphasis on spinal control.

 

Mobility of nervous tissue — Back health is dependent upon neural mobility and many yoga asanas take the nerves to their fully lengthened positions. For example, forward bends performed with the legs straight lengthen the sciatic nerves. Other good postures for this are Maltese Cross and Plough.

Stress relief — Breath work, relaxation and meditation help to release stress and tension that may accumulate in the back. Stress can play a big role in back pain. By focusing the mind inward, the body receives messages that it is safe and secure. The body can then relax and achieve a greater sense of wellbeing and stillness. This in turn improves our ability to deal with the symptoms and causes of back pain. Treat yourself with a five minute progressive muscle relaxation now.

The healing koshas — Some forms of yoga like Dru yoga consciously engage all the layers of being (the koshas). While doing the physical movements of the asanas and the breath work, affirmations and visualisations are added invoking positive mental and emotional states. By involving all layers of being, you activate the prana or life-force in your body, balance your emotions, positively transform your thoughts and create deep stillness. This can help significantly with healing back pain.

 

Chakra connections

Yoga teacher Andrew Wells, based in Canberra, says that when he was part of a team doing detraumatisation work in war zones, he found that people who had disharmony in their chakras often had corresponding stiffness in the spine. For example, someone who had difficulty in expressing themselves had tightness around the cervical thoracic junction (connection between neck and upper back). Andrew takes this a step further by equating the main postural types with the chakras and their emotional associations.

For example he says lordosis, more commonly known as swayback, can be connected to insecurity and fear issues. Andrew believes people in fear slightly shut down at the front of the pelvis with a flexion of the hips and a top forward pelvis tilt in order to protect themselves. He says the iliopsoas muscles, which run down your side connecting the lower back to the upper thigh through the hip, shorten and then hold emotional tension derived from first and second chakra issues such as insecurity, attachment and fear. He says that if the front two chakras are shut down then the Premasana (the runner) or Dru Seat of Compassion can stretch the iliopsoas to release the fear that muscle might be holding.

Swayback is said to be the most common postural problem of the 21st century. Andrew’s conclusion is that on a mental/emotional level it has to do with a lack of engagement in life. He said it is a slack posture that creates an increased curvature at the top of the spine. Andrew suggests using the Dru Chair of Heart, the Warrior and Dru EBR1. The latter is a Dru Energy Block Release Sequence designed to free blocked energy in the spine, muscles and joints.

Excessive curvature of the upper back, with the accompanying hunching forward of the shoulders, is often associated with protecting the heart. For this, Andrew recommends chest opening postures such as the Fish, the Wheel and Camel.

 

It is prudent to remember that none of these are black and white correlations as not every person with a certain posture has a specific corresponding emotional state. However Andrew believes he has seen many such patterns of connections.

 

Emotional support

As a senior physiotherapist who works with the UK’s NHS, Ruth Boaler also has noticed patterns of similarity and emotional correspondences in patients with certain back conditions. Fibromyalgia syndrome, where people have widespread pain particularly in the neck and back, is one such complaint.

Ruth ran fibromyalgia support groups for the rheumatology department of the West Midlands hospital where she is based???? and observed time and again that her clients would give similar clues about the trigger or cause of their condition. They often identified themselves as being people who could never sit down until all the jobs were finished, even to the point of exhaustion, and that they found it hard to relax. They also often said they liked things to be just right before they would stop. Ruth said these patients loved the experience of Savasana when she taught it to them and that they also benefited from the pacing side of yoga because it brought them into balance and helped them to be kind to themselves.

Other professionals also have concluded that emotions can play a role in ongoing back pain. In April 2001 evidence presented at the Asia Pacific Orthopaedic Association’s Congress in Adelaide claimed that the severity of chronic, disabling back pain is determined by the patient’s own “psycho-social” makeup, rather than their actual injuries or the disease process.

Adelaide-based orthopaedic surgeon Dr Orso Osti said: “Whether a patient is involved in compensation claims following a work injury or car accident, or suffers from depression or from other medical conditions, appears to have more bearing on the severity and length of the symptoms, than the back injury itself,” he explained.

This is why it is important to find a yoga style with the ability to help people address this body/mind connection. Ruth demonstrated this point from her experience, this time as a Dru yoga teacher.

She noticed once that one of her yoga students had bilateral tightness of the iliopsoas. This student was also working with insecurity issues and they both felt this was linked. Ruth knew that in addition to stretching the iliopsoas, her student needed to practise heart opening postures to gently transform the emotions. She recommended working in stages so that her student did not release too much emotion too fast.

“A plain muscle stretch isn’t enough,” Ruth explains. “As a physio you just teach a stretch, when you are a yoga teacher you teach postures that have the physical stretch but also the breath work, heart opening, visualisation and affirmation. It all works very differently then. What could potentially have been an unsettling experience turns into something that is freeing.”

 

Breath work

As a yoga teacher, Ruth believes that postural body types can also affect our breathing. The importance of the breath is highlighted in back conditions such as swayback, where there is an increased curve in the upper back.

Swayback often compresses the middle part of body. The space between the ribs and the abdomen is cramped and this can affect the way we breathe at the diaphragm. Fear can create the same condition because when you are in fear you flex your abdominals, curve forward and hinge at the front. She says people who hold a lot of fear tighten and contract down in the middle part of their body.

 

Dru yoga specifically works with opening the heart and lifting the sternum. In Tadasana we lift out of the hips, raise the rib cage and lengthen the spine helping to break the fear reflex. This movement opens the space between ribs and hip bones and allows the diaphragm to be freer. The Sun Sequence and Dru Spinal Wave also open and free this area so that the diaphragm can release fear or any other emotional patterns that are held in that part of body.

The Dru Solar Kriya uses backward and forward bends but the focus is completely on the breath. This kriya focuses on the pranic or life force level and uses what in yoga is known as the vayus (the yogic five flows of the breath). The prana vayu, which is the upward flow, is activated as you breathe in and stretch back and the apana vayu, or downward flow, is activated as you bend forward and breathe out. Activating the vayus in this way clears pranic blocks in your energy system preparing you for relaxation and meditation, which have their own role in healing pain.

The spinal wave backward and forward movement is a good example of how yoga crosses the spectrum. It could be seen on the physical level to hydrate discs and keep them young. Or it could be a movement that focuses on the breath thereby alleviating back pain through stress relief and inducing deep peace through the slow flowing movements. What level yoga can go to all depends on where you put your focus.

Now you have a yogic tool box for back care. Even if you don’t have time for yoga every day it’s still important to exercise the spine. Nothing is a waste and even if you only do one stretch you are helping to maintain a healthy back. Every day try to do a forward and backward bend, a side bend and a twist, and you will be amazed at how something so simple can make a difference.

Astoria Barr has been practising yoga on and off for more than 20 years and is now a dru yoga instructor. She is a freelance writer who specialises in positive news, health and spirituality articles as well as doing volunteer PR for non-profit organisations.