Back pain is so common and can be so debilitating that I want to keep sharing approaches here. If you have any, please share as well!

Q: I have chronic lower back pain for 4 years and it’s getting worse, to the point where I’m tempted to take prescription drugs. I’ve tried everything else. I have degeneration in the L5 S1 joint, and a bulging disc. I started back to yoga classes and I find it really challenging (esp forward bending), so I only go once a week! Is this enough, and are there any moves or a daily practice I can do to relieve the pain and heal my body?

A: You’re not alone! Chronic back pain is one of the most common challenges for people who are writing to us for help from all around the world.  It’s also an area where Western medicine often struggles. We have some things that are working well for people, I’ll share with you below.

The tough thing with surgery is the 2-year efficacy is often about the same as doing nothing.

Whether you get surgery or not, intervene with drugs or not, at some point you have to figure out how to help your body heal itself. You are the single most important participant in your own health and healing.

From a surgeon’s perspective, the surgery is done, and it’s a success! From our perspective, recovery is long and painful, and lots of people wind up right back where they started two years later. So I share your attempt to avoid drugs and surgery here.

As with most things, it matters at least as much How you do everything as what you do. Whether it’s yoga or any other form of therapy, you want to find ways to go easy enough that your body gets to shift from defense mode into healing mode. If you’re always tensing up because something hurts, that’s hard to do – but possible – it just takes some exploration to find your own way.

As a general guide in yoga, don’t worry at all about pushing into any idea of “correct” poses. Just move easy, everything you’ve got, in every direction you can. The most important thing is to find ways of releasing stress from your body, and triggering what’s called the “Relaxation Response” – a cascade of reactions in your body that promote healing.

We have a set of 5 moves for healing and preventing back pain, that people have found extremely helpful in relieving pain and helping discs come back to their proper position.

Both for better and worse, our bodies respond really well to what we do every day. So it’s important to do something good, every day.

Give this a try each day for a couple of weeks and let me know how it goes. We can make adjustments from there.

If you want some more guidance on treatment and prevention for back pain, that covers a variety of principles and practices for healing in general, Tara and I created an online course that gives some more detail and support. 

One more thing. This one people don’t usually listen to, until they’re really in pain! I’ve been there. Interestingly enough, this works really well for everyone I know who has used it.

Walk around on all fours – hands and knees – every morning when you’re first getting out of bed, and every night before you’re back to bed. Do this for at least a few minutes each time.

Amazingly, it has a way of “moving easily, everything you’ve got, in every direction” that helps regenerate your body’s natural support structure and alignment along your spine.

Hope this helps!

🙂 Mike

About Strala Yoga Training

Strala combines the movement and healing wisdom of tai chi with the form vocabularies of yoga, tai chi, qigong, and Traditional Chinese and Japanese Medicine, to help people release stress, move easily through challenge, and live radiantly inspiring lives.

It begins with a mindset, that says our best way to get where we’re going is to feel good along the way. It also works miracles for whole health, helping us to find ease in our bodies and minds, and create the right conditions both for healing and optimal performance.

In our Strala Yoga Training Courses, you learn to shape your destiny on every level that counts, from your psychology, chemistry and neurology, to your chromosomes and even gene expression. The unique set of skills you develop – for connecting with yourself and others, unblocking your energy, healing what needs healing and accomplishing challenge with ease – uncovers your ability to create the life you want, and be an inspiring leader to the people around you.

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