Yoga for Chronic Pain

Yoga can help ease and decrease the occurrence of chronic pain. Through accessible practices you learn how to decrease tension, stress, breathe and move with greater ease leading you to improvements in all aspects of your daily life.

Due to the highly individual experience of chronic pain, the management of chronic pain is equally individual. Your life circumstances, experiences, how you learn will influence your experience reducing your symptoms.

Some people are able to learn a few basic principles during our intake and apply them to practices in a gentle, restorative or specific class for people with chronic pain or their home practice.

The breathing practices, as a singular activity or one in conjunction with movement based practices simply said, is calming to the nervous system resulting in the ‘relaxation response’ which is known to offer a break the pain cycle. Through practice you being to approach many of your daily activities with more mindful movements leading to less triggers and a ‘quieter’ response rate when you do.

According to the American Chronic Pain Association, “Chronic pain can be described as ongoing or recurrent pain, lasting beyond the usual course of acute illness or injury or more than 3 to 6 months, and which adversely affects the individual’s well-being. A simpler definition for chronic or persistent pain is pain that continues when it should not. (IASP 2004)”.

practices that include many things you may already be familiar with from your research on chronic pain: breathing, meditation, mindfulness, mindful movement,

My recommendation for the greatest improvements to your day would be to do a series of privates (3-6) to get acquainted with the practices of Yoga and how they may be adapted to you and then to become more and more familiar with them developing a home practice. From there you will have a practice for yourself and experience with principles that will support you in a gentle group Yoga class and/or many of your daily activities.

Please contact me to arrange a phone consult where we can discuss your options, 406-327-0775 or marina@yogamz.com.

Articles about Yoga and Chronic Pain

When researching Yoga on your own, please note that the accompanying pictures are often stock photos of Yoga vs. pictures of how Yoga would be practiced by people with chronic pain. Just as your personal experience with chronic pain differs from others, so will the best Yoga practices for you.

Below are a few articles you may find helpful as you navigate your way with chronic pain.

“Restorative Yoga for Chronic Pain”, Yoga International, Kelly McGonigal

“How Does Yoga Relieve Chronic Pain?Yoga has the opposite effect on the brain as chronic pain”,Psychology Today, Christopher Bergland

“Yoga For Pain Relief”, Harvard Health Publishing

“Perspectives on Yoga Inputs in the Management of Chronic Pain”, Indian Journal of Palliative Care, Nandini Vallath