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Yoga for Your Back and Much More
©
By Philip L. Milgrom
The main focus of this
article is the benefits of Yoga, and primarily those benefits for your
back. However, such a limited approach would be a great disservice to you,
and disrespect to the great teachers who have handed down to us this
wonderful and sacred discipline from over two thousand years ago. The
value of Yoga is much, much greater than what it can do for your back,
just as your true value is much greater than that of your back, or of any
other part, for that matter! Nevertheless, I will start with your back.
That is a good place to start, for your back is your primary support, and
without a healthy back, your journey — whether it be to your office, a
vacation spot, or your spiritual awakening — will be much more difficult
and troublesome.
First, if you are
someone whose back goes out more often than you do, do not despair! You
are not alone: 80% of us will have a back problem sometime in our lives.
Next to the common cold, back pain is the most common malady in the United
States. In fact, low back pain is the leading cause of restricted movement
and disability between the ages of 19 and 45.
Many people who suffer
from severe back pain believe that their only resort is surgery. This is
tragic, because the amount of pain one suffers has little to do with the
efficacy of surgery. Despite extensive medical literature on unsuccessful
surgery and evidence that repeat procedures rarely improve outcomes, there
are numerous examples of patients who have had as many as 20 spine
operations. What's more, surgery for back pain is twice as frequent in the
United States as in most developed countries, and five times as frequent
as in Great Britain.
What alternative do we
have other than surgery? I have had an interest in that question for many
years. During high school, I was already experiencing stabbing pain in my
thoracic spine, caused by lifting weights improperly during training for
football. I watched both of my parents suffer from agonizing back
problems, including slipped and ruptured disks; and yes, both parents
ended up on the operating table several times. So, it is no surprise that
I sought ways to avoid the same fate for myself. A few months after
graduating from college in 1969, I was introduced to Yoga: it was love at
first stretch. With consistent practice, my back pain was soon forgotten.
My rewards from the
practice of Yoga inspired me to share it with others, so I started
teaching Yoga in 1974. However, in spite of the success I experienced with
Yoga for my own back and the many years of teaching since then, I did not
have 100% confidence teaching students with back problems until 1997. That
is when I was introduced to the Svaroopa™ style of Yoga and its
originator, Rama Berch. Since then, with hundreds of hours of intensive
training under Berch's tutelage, and several years of teaching Svaroopa™
yoga classes, I am now firmly convinced and confident in the power of Yoga
for healing even the most difficult back problems. I have seen many
wonderful results. For example, many who had all but given up on their
backs, as well as on themselves, have come to experience a new lease on
life as a result of Yoga.
Lorraine's Journey Back to Health
Take Lorraine, for
example, who first came to one of my basic Yoga classes two years ago. She
had spent the preceding two decades of her life in constant pain and
discomfort. It started in 1979, when she was involved in a terrible
automobile accident that almost took her life. She broke her neck in three
places. Ten years later she suffered from a herniated lumbar disk, and a
couple years after that, another disk ruptured. She also suffered from
painful arthritis. Her doctors had told her that she would have to live
with her pain the rest of her life. Her neurologist claimed she should be
"permanently disabled." She was told she would have to give up
all strenuous exercise. This was hard for her to take, as she likes to
throw herself wholeheartedly into gardening, hiking, and other similar
activities.
So, she resigned to watch
her husband do the work in the garden. Whenever she did try to do some
gardening, it would take her all day because she had to retreat frequently
into her house to lie down and recover from the severe pain. When she
hiked, she could only do one or two miles at most (on a good day), but
only with frequent rest stops.
The first significant
change Lorraine noticed was after about a month of classes when she took
off for a vacation in Italy. She practiced Yoga faithfully each day of her
journey (one thing nice about Yoga is that you can take it with you!). The
results were almost incredible for her. In her words, "It helped me
survive the physical strain of the trip. It worked beautifully. I never
thought I could travel that distance."
The next significant
event for her was a trip to Arizona, about a year later. "I was
amazed at myself!" she reported.
"I climbed vortexes [in Sedona] and hiked trails for miles
through the Grand Canyon, and was extremely active in this manner
throughout the day." Her doctors were refuted. This past summer she
has also enjoyed vigorous activity in the garden again.
Not All Yoga Is Created Equal
I want to caution my
readers here that many styles of Yoga exist today, and not all of them are
appropriate for all people. People with back problems or similar
vulnerabilities must be especially careful to choose a style of Yoga that
is gentle and a teacher who is well qualified. However, many styles of
Yoga are gentle and non-invasive, and that is why they can work so well
for so many problems. Practiced regularly and gently, with precision and
detail for alignment, Yoga helps muscles loosen and lengthen. This helps
blood flow more easily through the muscles for healing and increased
strength. Tense muscles, lacking adequate blood flow, are weak; relaxed,
richly nourished muscles are much stronger.
Most backaches are due
to muscles being overworked in some way. These muscles do not need to be
challenged or even stretched so much as they need to be released and
relaxed. Svaroopa Yoga induces these muscles to let go and teaches
students how to move and sit properly so that they may continue to be
strain free. A good example of this is Jane, who has practiced Svaroopa
Yoga with me since I first introduced it to my classes. She had been
suffering from back problems and was told by her doctor that the next step
to her pain relief would be surgery. Jane reports that after several years
of Yoga practice, her lower back pain has been eliminated, and that:
"…even after hours of driving or sitting in one place, the muscles
remain relatively relaxed and return quickly to being flexible; that is,
pain free." (She also gratefully shared with me that “menopause
would be hell without Yoga!”)
Another student, Kathy,
also testified to how Yoga has helped her become more aware of herself in
a therapeutic way: “I try to practice Yoga throughout the day by
sneaking in stretches and breathing. I catch myself breathing too
shallowly, can feel when my muscles are tense, and know that I am not
relaxed as I could be. I was never aware of this before." As a result
of her increased awareness and responsibility to herself, Kathy says that
she now experiences “the feeling of inner calmness” for the first time
in years.
Yoga works powerfully,
and its effects last, because it brings change gently and gradually. Yoga
is not meant to be an overnight cure. As Carl Jung once said: "Things
seldom happen overnight except in dreams." Changes in the body that
do happen too quickly, usually "snap" back quickly, too. Many
people with back problems are experiencing the result of years of poor
posture or body mechanics, or as in Lorraine's case, years of pain and
tension induced by a specific physical injury. In any case, their tensions
and imbalances have become deep set. Poor posture can force back muscles
into constant contraction to compensate for imbalances. This makes the
muscles prone to spasm. Similarly, injuries can induce
"protective" contractions that lead to spasms. To expect
immediate transformation from such maladies would be unrealistic.
Rama Berch suggests
that for the number of years you have been suffering from a problem, you
need that many months of Yoga to heal it completely. I shared this concept
with Lorraine early in her practice when she was still having some
difficulty. Given that her accident was 19 years before her Yoga practice
began, I told her she would need about 19 months of Yoga to heal. I had
expected her to become discouraged hearing this, but she was actually
elated: she told me she had never been given hope before. Now, considering
the results, the formula has been substantiated.
Unlike Lorraine, some
students notice significant changes immediately when beginning Yoga, as I
did 30 years ago, and still do. For example, Shari had recently suffered a
whiplash in an automobile accident. She came to a yoga class as a last
resort: she was beginning to think she would have to live the rest of her
life depending on painkillers. By only the third class, however, she was
already experiencing almost complete freedom from pain.
A Way Back from Pain, Fear, Anxiety
Most of the people who
come to my back classes have suffered a great amount of pain in their
lives. One common denominator among them is that they seem to be fettered
by fear. It is understandable: every change they had ever known before had
been associated with more pain, and so they were afraid to try anything
new. (As with Shari, many of them had come to my class with reluctance and
in desperation.) This is unfortunate, because inactivity is probably the
worst recourse for back pain, as has been substantiated by studies in
recent years. Doctors used to prescribe bed rest as the standard therapy
for back pain, but most have since changed their ways.
Getting back to fear,
the paradox about fear is that it actually magnifies pain. As Mary Pullig
Schatz, MD states in her book, Back Care Basics: A Doctor's Gentle Yoga
Program for Back and Neck Pain Relief: "In any painful situation,
there are two main components that determine how much pain you perceive:
the basic pain and the pain that is superimposed by your reaction to the
basic pain. This superimposed pain comes from the feelings of fear,
helplessness, and uncertainty that are generated by the basic pain."
Schatz explains further
that when the pain occurs during exercise, the reaction of fear causes the
muscles in the area to tighten up, and so pain increases, along with the
likelihood of injury. This only confirms people's fears. So, the fear
prevents them from exercise, and lacking the circulation that exercise
could bring, their body becomes more stiff and sore.
The beauty and power of
Yoga, and what distinguishes it from rehabilitative exercise, is that it
is more than just physical: it involves your whole being. You are taught
to breathe in a relaxed, deep way and to focus your mind meditatively, and
in so doing, fear dissipates. Learning to regulate the breath and exhale
more deeply creates instantaneous physiological as well as psychological
healing. In the words of Jnoni Chapman, RN, the former executive director
of the International Association of Yoga Therapists:
"You decrease the amount of carbon dioxide in the blood, which
triggers the brain to relax the nervous system. You also allow the body to
eliminate the physiological effects of anxiety, such as the buildup of
lactic acid, which tightens muscles."
Furthermore, the
mind-body interaction goes both ways. When the muscles relax, as they do
in Yoga practice, the mind becomes more tranquil. Barbara Brown confirms
this in her book, Stress and the Art of Biofeedback: “… anxiety
and relaxation are mutually exclusive. That is, anxiety does not, cannot
exist when the muscles are truly relaxed.”
In Yoga practice, your
mind and body work cooperatively to create a calm space and a healing
perspective. From there, you can observe your sensations and situations
objectively, and respond to them more prudently. Instead of reacting and
falling into the vicious cycle of fear, tension, pain, and more fear, as
Schatz outlined above, you can rise to a victorious cycle. Your mind
becomes less reactive and critical. You acquire a sense of control instead
of helplessness. Better yet, you learn to accept life as it is, rather
than resisting it. With acceptance comes the highest form of healing.
So, though you might
turn to Yoga for the reasons most people do — to relieve back pain and
other physical problems — you are bound to get more than you bargained
for. A good Yoga teacher, knowing that physical fitness is a natural
outcome of the practice of Yoga, also leads her students toward better
mental fitness. As a result, they develop a strong and flexible body while
also developing the mental and emotional “muscles” needed to handle
stress well.
The Ultimate Way of Managing Stress
Yoga’s ability to
relieve stress, which is the second most common reason people turn to
Yoga, is particularly relevant for healing and preventing back problems.
Recent studies have determined that 95% of commonplace back ailments are
triggered by the psyche, not by physical abnormalities or by heavy
lifting. Back muscles tense up in response to emotional stress. Tensed up
too long, as noted earlier, they start to hurt. The same mechanism causes
tension headaches.
I think of Yoga as the
ultimate, revolutionary stress management tool because it reaches the core
of our being — not just the muscles and inner organs, but the spirit
within us, our true Self. Why is that important for stress management, or
for any healing, for that matter? Because the negative effects of stress
usually arise when we feel overwhelmed or powerless, and we feel
overwhelmed and powerless when we have lost connection with the infinite
power that resides at the center of our being. The second verse of the
first chapter of Patanjali's Yoga Sutras, perhaps the greatest
classical text on the philosophy and psychology of Yoga, defines Yoga as
the stilling of the modifications of the mind. The next verse explains
that when the mind becomes still, the power of our true Self in the depths
of our being is revealed to us. As when the surface of a pond is
disturbed, the ripples prevent us from seeing into the depths of the pond,
so when our mind is rippled with so many thoughts and worries, we cannot
sense the depth of our own Being. That eventually leads to distress.
Chiming in from the
West, Robert Louis Stevenson wrote this about the treasure of a quiet
mind: “Quiet minds cannot be perplexed or frightened, but go on in
fortune or misfortune at their own private pace, like a clock during a
thunderstorm.” An interesting side note: one of my students, a health
nurse who counsels people with eating disorders, once shared with me that
she noticed all her clients uniformly lack any inkling of what it means to
have a calm or peaceful or centered place within. "The only way they
had ever been able to live with their problems is through escape into
food, exercise, and substances."
When we experience our
center, that inner calm, or God, or the spirit within us, we are
transformed, and our suffering ceases. In the words of Deepak Chopra:
“There exists in
every person a place that is free from disease, that never feels pain,
that cannot age or die. When you go to this place, limitations which all
of us accept cease to exist. They are not even entertained as a
possibility. This is a place called perfect health…”
Back Toward Wholeness
The third most common
reason people turn to Yoga is spiritual hunger. Mother Teresa once
commented that the physical starvation in India is nothing like the
spiritual starvation in the West. Yoga helps us develop a compass that
points to True Self, bringing us a sense of direction, connection, and
wholeness.
Attaining wholeness is
no easy task in a culture that seems to be doing everything it can to make
us feel lacking. Watch a few minutes of commercials on television, for
example, and see if you feel whole and complete! The messages attempt to
seduce us into believing that we will not be happy (or beautiful) until we
buy (fill in the blank with any of the following: a brand of beer, snack
food, clothing, perfume, expensive automobile, ad infinitum).”
Ironically, an
increasing number of advertisers are using Yoga itself as a prop to sell
their products. In the past year, Yoga poses or classes have been featured
in ads selling everything from skin cream, to HMOs, to Internet business
solutions. A few years back, Chrysler ran an ad for their Jeep Cherokee in
several publications, featuring a page full of silhouetted figures doing
Yoga postures, with the name of the posture written below each figure. The
caption for the entire gallery: “The Eight Principal Postures for
Achieving Relaxation and Self-Discovery.” Looking more closely, you see
one of the figures is a seated driver, and that posture is named “The
Jeep Grand Cherokee.”
In a culture that
promises happiness for everyone through materialism and excess, but where,
for so many, only misery and discontentment are realized instead (and add
to that the suffering brought upon the Third World as a result of American
excesses), Yoga is more than a promise: it is an answer for living
respectfully with the stresses and absurdities of our modern world. Yoga
brings us back to our senses: our senses of Dignity, Wholeness, and
Spirit. In so doing, Yoga not only brings health to our backs (and other
body parts, as well), but also brings us back to true Health.
Phil Milgrom
teaches Svaroopa Yoga classes and a variety of Yoga workshops nationally,
including Yoga for Your Back and
Laughter Is a Good Stretch, Too!, as well as in the Littleton/Westford
MA area and at The Centered Place Yoga studio of Warren, MA, which he
co-directs with his life partner, Nancy Nowak. For more information, call
800 815-7374, or e-mail CenteredPlace@attbi.com.
Phil is also a stress management consultant, and has a web site at
http://www.philmilgrom.com.
Rama Berch is founder
and director of the Master Yoga Academy in La Jolla, California. She often
teaches workshops and retreats on the East coast. The Master Yoga Academy
can be reached at (858) 454-6978, or
info@masteryoga.org.
Deepak Chopra, Perfect
Health: The Complete
Mind/Body Program for Identifying & Soothing the Source of Your
Body's Reaction, Harmony Books, 1991
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