yoga for back pain

Many Turn to Yoga, CAM Where Modern Medicine Fails

Anyone who has gone to see their doctor for back pain can testify to the fact that nine times out of ten, pain killers and/or steroids are the resulting prescription. The other time: back surgery. Because of this, it’s no surprise that more and more Americans are turning to complimentary and alternative medicine (CAM), including yoga, for back pain and other structural health concerns.

A report released by the Center for Disease Control revealed that 38% of adults turned to CAM for health care during a given year, and that nearly half of those who had used alternative health solutions had done so for back pain.

These figures aren’t surprising when one considers modern medicines limited ability to treat back pain, neck pain, and other joint aches. Most of the time, conventional medicine can only apply a “band-aid” or side-effect-eliminating treatment, without addressing the underlying root of the structural issue.

However, CAM such as yoga addresses back pain at its root by stretching and strengthening the core postural muscles that support the spine. But working on the level of the body’s own structure, yoga relieves back pain without invasive surgery or prescription drug side-effects.

And, for anyone whose back pain requires inflammation-reducing steroids or pain-reducing medication, CAM methods such as yoga provide a safe and effective means to aid recovery without interfering with medications. 

With this in mind, it’s little surprise that more and more Americans are seeking out CAM including yoga for back pain to gain true and lasting relief from structural health concerns.

Book Review: Yoga as Medicine Ultimate Guide to Yoga Therapy

Yoga as Medicine: The Yogic Prescription for Health and Healing is clearly a labor of love and the ultimate guide to yoga therapy. This definitive volume was written by the Yoga Journal medical editor, Timothy McCall—a conventionally trained internist and seasoned yogi, who has practiced Iyengar yoga for over a decade. In Yoga as Medicine, McCall introduces the history and science of yoga and translates yoga therapy and India’s ancient medical system Ayurveda into Western medical terms.

The book is centered on yoga therapy as it profiles some of the leading yoga therapy practitioners in different fields of specializaiton. A full twenty chapters focus on leading yoga therapy instructors and include detailed information about their approaches to a wide array of medical conditions, including yoga for arthritis, chronic fatigue, yoga for cancer, infertility, multiple sclerosis,Yoga as Medicine depression, back pain, heart disease, and so on. One of the great features of the book is that it outlines specific yoga asanas recommended by each yoga therapy instructor for specific conditions and gives the reader insight into how to utilize therapeutic yoga (including breathing techniques and meditation) for prevention and healing of illness.

Yoga as Medicine includes sections on how to practice yoga safely, particularly for people with physical limitations, and it guides the reader through steps to finding a yoga therapist and what to expect from a session. McCall describes yoga therapy as “a systematic technology to improve the body, understand the mind, and free the spirit,” and Yoga as Medicine gives you the essential guide to doing so.

 Click Here to learn more about Yoga as Medicine: The Yogic Prescription for Health and Healing

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