Relieve Back Pain with Yoga
By John M. de Castro, Ph.D.
“This systematic review found strong evidence for short-term effectiveness and moderate evidence for long-term effectiveness of yoga for chronic low back pain in the most important patient-centered outcomes. Yoga can be recommended as an additional therapy to chronic low back pain patients.” – Holger Cramer
Low Back Pain is the leading cause of disability worldwide and affects between 6% to 15% of the population. It is estimated, however, that 80% of the population will experience back pain sometime during their lives. There are varied treatments for low back pain including chiropractic care, acupuncture, biofeedback, physical therapy, cognitive behavioral therapy, massage, surgery, opiate pain killing drugs, steroid injections, and muscle relaxant drugs. These therapies are sometimes effective particularly for acute back pain. But, for chronic conditions the treatments are less effective and often require continuing treatment for years and opiate pain killers are dangerous and can lead to abuse, addiction, and fatal overdoses. Obviously, there is a need for safe and effective treatments for low back pain that are low cost and don’t have troublesome side effects.
Pain involves both physical and psychological issues. The stress, fear, and anxiety produced by pain tends to elicit responses that actually amplify the pain. So, reducing the emotional reactions to pain may be helpful in pain management. Mindfulness practices have been shown to improve emotion regulation producing more adaptive and less maladaptive responses to emotions. Indeed, mindfulness practices are effective in treating pain and have been shown to be safe and effective in the management of low back pain. Yoga practice has been shown to have a myriad of health benefits. These include relief of chronic pain. Yoga practice has also been shown to be effective for the relief of chronic low-back pain. Many forms of yoga focus on the proper alignment of the spine, which could directly address the source of back and neck pain for many individuals. So, it makes sense to further explore the effectiveness of yoga therapy for chronic low back pain and the structure of the spine.
In today’s Research News article “A Randomized Controlled Trial to Assess Pain and Magnetic Resonance Imaging-Based (MRI-Based) Structural Spine Changes in Low Back Pain Patients After Yoga Practice.” See:
or see summary below or view the full text of the study at:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5031167/
Telles and colleagues recruited patients with degenerative intervertebral discs and randomly assigned them to either yoga or treatment as usual waitlist control groups. The yoga group engaged in light exercises and specific physical yoga postures, breathing exercises, and chanting and yoga relaxation techniques, for one hour per day for 3 months. Before and after treatment the participants were measured for pain, anxiety, and spine flexibility. To look at potential structural alteration, the participants’ spines were measured employing Magnetic Resonance Imaging.
They found that yoga practice produced a significant reduction in both pain levels and anxiety. There were no significant changes found in spine flexibility or the structure of the spine including nerve compression, endplate changes, and facet joint change. Hence yoga practice was shown to be effective in reducing subjective pain and the anxiety produced by it. This is in line with previous research but it was disappointing not to see changes in spine flexibility or structure. It appears that yoga practice is safe and moderately effective in treating patients with degenerative intervertebral discs.
So, relieve back pain with yoga.
“Yoga focuses a great deal of attention to developing both balance and flexibility. Improper spinal alignment can cause back pain and decrease range of motion in the spine. Yoga postures focus on elongating the spine and rediscovering the spine’s range of motion. Practicing a few yoga stretches after work can help straighten and strengthen your spine.” – Nicole Carlin
CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies
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Study Summary
Telles, S., Bhardwaj, A. K., Gupta, R. K., Sharma, S. K., Monro, R., & Balkrishna, A. (2016). A Randomized Controlled Trial to Assess Pain and Magnetic Resonance Imaging-Based (MRI-Based) Structural Spine Changes in Low Back Pain Patients After Yoga Practice. Medical Science Monitor : International Medical Journal of Experimental and Clinical Research, 22, 3238–3247. http://doi.org/10.12659/MSM.896599
Abstract
Background:
The present study aimed at determining whether 12 weeks of yoga practice in patients with chronic LBP and MRI-based degenerative changes would result in differences in: (i) self-reported pain, anxiety, and spinal flexibility; and (ii) the structure of the discs or vertebrae.
Material/Methods:
Sixty-two persons with MRI-proven degenerative intervertebral discs (group mean ±S.D., 36.2±6.4 years; 30 females) were randomly assigned to yoga and control groups. However, testing was conducted on only 40 subjects, so only their data are included in this study. The assessments were: self-reported pain, state anxiety, spinal flexibility, and MRI of the lumbosacral spine, performed using a 1.5 Tesla system with a spinal surface column. The yoga group was taught light exercises, physical postures, breathing techniques, and yoga relaxation techniques for 1 hour daily for 3 months. No intervention was given to the control group except for routine medical care. A repeated-measures analysis of variance (ANOVA) with post hoc analyses (which was Bonferroni-adjusted) was used. The Ethics Committee of Patanjali Research Foundation had approved the study which had been registered in the Clinical Trials Registry of India (CTRI/2012/11/003094).
Results:
The yoga group showed a significant reduction in self-reported pain and state anxiety in a before/after comparison at 12 weeks. A few patients in both groups showed changes in the discs and vertebrae at post-intervention assessment.
Conclusions:
Within 12 weeks, yoga practice reduced pain and state anxiety but did not alter MRI-proven changes in the intervertebral discs and in the vertebrae.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5031167/