CAM, Yoga Offer More Effective Therapy for Back Pain

Back pain is an increasingly common complaint in our desk-bound society. Once mainly associated with old age, chronic low back pain, shoulder pain, and neck pain are now striking people at much younger ages.

Unfortunately, many chronic back pain sufferers discover the hard way that Western medicine is limited in what it has to offer for back pain, short of surgery or palliative treatment, such as pain killers, which come with side effects and the risk of addiction. Not surprisingly, an estimated four out of ten back pain sufferers turn to other effective solutions and prevention methods for back pain, particularly complimentary and alternative medicine (CAM) approaches, including yoga.

While CAM modalities offer different approaches to back pain issues, they share one feature: they seek to deal with the underlying tensions and imbalances in the soft tissues, which typically lie at the root of back pain issues. For general and lower back pain, yoga can be adopted alongside other CAM methods, such as massage, acupuncture, and Rolfing. Here is an overview of each.

Deep Tissue and Swedish Massage

Massage addresses back pain through hands-on manipulation of the muscles and other soft tissues. Massaging an area of the body encourages the target and surrounding muscles to relax, improving blood flow and flushing toxins.

Deep tissue massage soothes and relaxes tense muscles, which may be pulling on the spine and cause referred pain. Deep-tissue massage can help muscles that have gone into a painful spasm to let go and release. In particular, a skillful therapeutic massage therapist will be able to read your body to find out which areas of tightness are causing the pain—and it’s not always the area where the pain is felt. Whereas deep tissue massage is often the most effective treatment for back pain, even a soothing, relaxing massage, such as a Swedish massage can help reduce the mental stresses that often contribute to tense muscles and back pain. Many therapists also advocate massage as an effective preventive medicine, which can improve posture and general physical function.

Acupuncture

This traditional form of East Asian healing combats back pain by stimulating specific pressure points on the body. Acupuncture points are best explained as a kind of energetic vortexes; they are power points along the “meridians” through which the body’s life force or “chi” circulates.

Acupuncture therapists view the basic cause of back pain, and most health issues for that matter, as caused by blockages to the energy flow in the body. Much as blood must circulate to all areas of the body to keep the body healthy and vital, so the body’s energy, or chi, must circulate freely for the body to stay vital and healthy.

Acupuncture treatments target energy-stripping and pain-causing blockages to along the body’s meridians by stimulating the specific acupuncture points associated with the condition. Both studies and anecdotal reports indicate that acupuncture offers effective therapy for back pain, and can help relax the soft tissues and relieve muscle spasms, arthritis, muscle imbalance, or even herniated disks.

Acupuncture has gained a nod of approval from the American Pain Society and the American College of Physicians, which encourage doctors to consider acupuncture, among other CAM therapies, for those suffering from chronic low-back pain, which is unresponsive to conventional treatment.

Rolfing

Rolfing was developed over six decades ago by Dr. Ida P. Rolf, who discovered that one of the most effective ways of relieving back pain was to work on relieving chronic tension patterns in the fascia, i.e. the connective tissue which runs throughout our bodies. Fascia encases all our muscle, organs, and bones, and Ida Rolf was one of the first to realize its critical importance for the overall health of the soft tissues and the body’s structural integrity. When we undergo illness, trauma, or even just the stresses of day-to-day life, chronic tension patterns can get lodged in the fascia; because the fascial sheaths envelops the whole body, this can create global problems.

For example, by tensing up and shrinking, much in the way cling-wrap does, stressed connective tissue can pull the head forward, the shoulders together, upsetting the balance of the pelvis. This taut and unnatural compression in turn puts stress on the spine, leading to aches and pains in the back.

Rolfing focuses on freeing up tightened connective tissue to provide relief from back pain; it also often increases range of motion, function, flexibility, and many people report feeling a greater overall sense of integration, energy, and balance.

Yoga for Back Pain

The effects of yoga on back pain are somewhat similar to those of massage and Rolfing, except it can be done on its own, without a therapist. Like massage, yoga can help relieve back aches by stretching tight muscles that may be pulling on the spine, similar to what is accomplished in deep tissue massage. Yoga exercises for the back also increase blood flow to the muscles, improving oxygen and nutrient distribution and helping to relieve toxins. Yoga exercises for lower back pain feature poses that alternate between flexing and relaxing muscle groups, creating an influx in blood flow and helping to break the vicious cycle of muscle spasms.

Like massage, gentle yoga exercises for the back can help soothe excessive stress, which often lies at the root of or exacerbates back pain. Yoga calms the mind and brings the awareness back to the body, allowing a healing integration to take place between the two. By coordinating body postures with breathing techniques, yoga for the back uses a principle of “body follows mind, mind follows breath” to induce a state of deep relaxation: the foundation of healing.

Long, slow yoga stretches are also effective at relieving back pain by reducing chronic tension patterns in the fascia, somewhat similar to Rolfing. Gentle yoga stretches held for longer periods of time, ideally a 2-3 minutes, are most effective at releasing deep-held tension patterns in the fascia, because it allows sufficient time for the fascia to slowly relax and let go.

Back pain yoga also has the benefit that it strengthens the core postural muscles responsible for supporting the spine. By toning the body’s core, yoga improves posture and the body’s overall structural balance, taking pressure off the spine and redistributing it in a more balanced and healthy way.

Yoga can help reduce back pain more effectively than traditional back pain exercises, according to studies. In a 12-week study involving 101 adults, people who did yoga exercises for back pain showed more than twice the development than the people who did physical therapy exercises or received education about back self-care.

People new to yoga are often concerned that they won’t be flexible or limber enough to practice yoga; however, a skilled yoga teachers or yoga therapists used to working with people with back pain can help you adopt the yoga poses to be suitable for people with back issues. For resources, check out our Yoga Therapy Directory for yoga therapists in your area. Of course, it’s always best to consult with your physician before undertaking any new exercise program.