Pain Relief – Here Comes Yoga
People are often in pain. Emotional pain can be the worst pain of them all. People often cannot get over their pain, emotional or otherwise. Physical pain can be even worse, sometimes, because it may inhibit a person from doing their normal, everyday activities, like walking, taking a shower. For those with chronic pain, whatever the cause, there are solutions out there. Some solutions work better than others, like medicine compared to essential oils. With that out of the way, there are actual ways other than medicine, which may help relieve chronic pain. Yoga is one of those ways. Here is how yoga can help relieve chronic pain.
Diaphragmatic Breathing
This is one of the core exercises in yoga, as well as singing, for that matter. To practice this, you should find a comfortable position, meaning a seated one for most people. Placing your hands below your ribs will allow you to actually feel when your stomach starts moving and inflating, to allow more air in, your diaphragm contracting in the process. Breathing out slowly will relax your diaphragm muscle. Now, all of this has a very calming effect on the central nervous system, which will, in turn, make the pain go away for a while. This also has a calming effect on people, meaning that they can better deal with the frustration which is almost always present with chronic pain.
Corpse Pose – Savasana
The corpse pose, more often called by this name than its actual name, the savasana, is a pose where you lie on the ground on your back, your body completely relaxed. Doing so and conducting a full body scan is recommended. This is often done by imagining a white light, with your eyes closed, it penetrating your entire body, slowly, part by part. All the while, you are breathing the way you are supposed to, rhythmically and slowly, feeling every sensation in your body. This is a great way of scanning your body for potential issues, or parts which might be causing issues, which you had thought to have been elsewhere up to that moment.
Yoga Stretches
There are several yoga stretches, from the warrior pose, butterfly pose, mountain pose, bridge pose, and many more, which can help you slowly stretch your body. You should always stretch until you feel any pain. Upon feeling the pain, you should stop. Yoga is about your body slowly adapting, exploring and relaxing itself, rather than forcing it to do a thing it is not ready to do.
Chronic pain means that your brain and receptors are likely to interpret even a minor action as a painful one, even when there isn’t a real reason for that pain, or rather, the reason for the pain is less dangerous, but the pain is still very severe. Pain reactions are there to warn us, but the body can learn to send them even when they are not necessary. This is where yoga and its approach to understanding the human body and allowing it to find its own comfort, can really help alleviate the pain, and even make the person feel better, on an emotional level, not just a physical one. Regular sessions often make patients with chronic pain feel better for multiple reasons, mental well being among them, as well as physical. Yoga is great, so think about trying it!