Yoga and Back Pain - Healing benefits of yoga

• Yoga helps in proper body alignment and good posture, which helps maintain a natural curvature of the spine, that is crucial in avoiding lower back pain.
• Yoga increases the awareness of the body and keeps the body healthy and supple.
• Yoga incorporates stretching and relaxation, which reduces tension in stress carrying muscles.

Thus yoga is an excellent therapy for healing injured and sore back muscles, speeding time to recover from an injury and preventing reinjury. It also reduces the risk of disability due to back pain.

Backache strikes when the muscles are under fatigue, commonly at the neck or lumbar region (where most twisting, turning or bending occurs). Frequent backaches occur due to overstrained or overstretched muscles, improper sitting positions, stress, lumbar scoliosis and earlier injuries. Many conditions cause back pain and they can be treated with conscious and gentle yoga practice. However, all cases of back pain need to be evaluated by a medical expert for diagnosis and treatment.

Know Thy Vertebra

To understand back pain, we need to know about the structure of the Backbone. 33 vertebrae form the backbone. The backbone gives the main support to human beings to keep them erect in standing position. This vertebrae is further divided into 5 sections, namely,

1. Cervical region contains 7 vertebrae
2. Thoracic region contains 12 vertebrae
3. Lumbar region contains 5 vertebrae
4. Sacral region contains 5 vertebrae
5. Coccyx region contains 4 vertebrae