As most are aware, practicing yoga regularly contributes to
the body’s well being. Yoga can strengthen, but can also inform of weakness; if
the encounter is with back or neck pain, yogic methods can be beneficial in creating a healthy spine.
Common Complaints
Soreness, stiffness, and achiness, are misalignment signals. The body can
easily become imbalanced by everyday factors. Some are: stress, repetitive
motion (in the workplace or in a sport), carrying a purse on the same arm,
sitting improperly in a chair, poor mattress and pillow, and bad shoes (heels
as well as flip-flops).
Serious Complaints
Neck and back pain can be results of true injury or illness. Whiplash,
arthritis, nerve degeneration, herniated discs, and sciatica are some causes of
spinal discomfort and/or disability. As with most ailments, proper diet and
exercise can relieve many symptoms and promote healing. Exercise, specifically
applicable to spinal complaints, would be stretching and yoga.
Yoga Application
The vertebral column is categorized into three sections. The lower portion of
the back is called the Lumbar. The middle is identified as the thoracic, and
the upper, the neck, is the cervical region. Professionals will refer to discs
as C2 (cervical 2) or L3 (lumbar 3), for example, when discussing specific
backbones. As an instructor and one who practices yoga, it is important to
choose poses that emphasize each spinal area.
Poses for the Spine
The Hero Pose (Virasana) is a great posture for aligning the upper back.
Kneeling, reaching the torso up, out—pressing the shoulder-blades back.
Breathing in deeply, chin up, exhaling, holding the proud posture. Another
advantageous position is the Cow Face Pose.
The Half-Moon Pose (Ardha-Chandrasana) is super for stretching the middle back.
Lie face down, straight legs, tops of feet flat touching floor, heels touching
each other. Palms at side of chest. The move pushes with arms to lift the chest
off the ground, head back, chin up, inhaling, and holding. Exhale, slowly
releasing chest back to floor.
The Child’s Pose is a perfect lower back stretcher. Kneeling, buttocks down,
head down, arms straight, extended, palms on floor. Reaching fingertips way out
in front adds to the stretch.
Conclusion
There are virtually hundreds of poses that could benefit spinal relief, promote
healing, and strengthen the backbone. Maintaining a steady, yoga training is the
key to overall optimum health.
All individuals have separate levels of
quality of life, as well as adaptive functioning in their unique situations.
Verified research is continuing to demonstrate how our bodies – including our
physical tendencies, strengths, and growth areas - play a central role in those
dynamics. Yoga is a body-mind practice that is based in connecting body, mind,
and spirit in ways that empower individuals to reach closer to all that they
can be. Awareness of how we optimally integrate our bodies
through these patterns can lead practitioners and instructors to build and
maintain the practices (for ourselves or for our students) that are most true
to our bodies.
In less ideal situations, some individuals
experience developmental traumas that hinder their abilities to execute certain
movement patterns in that sequence. For instance, people could experience
significant physical injury or emotional abuse at the age when they were
learning how to execute body-half or core-distal movements (as described in the
prior article). Those unfortunate instances can cause “gaps”, so to speak, in
one’s movement abilities. The results, unsurprisingly enough, can be awkward
and/or uncontrolled movement characteristics corresponding with that pattern
(difficulty turning in a certain direction with complications in the
cross-lateral pattern, for example).
Furthermore, the typical developmental
movement sequence builds upon each prior ability (just as children must learn
how to add and subtract before we can expect them to succeed in algebra). One
“gap” could therefore cause one’s overall movement style to be disintegrated,
lacking of flow, and physically unpleasant for that individual. He or she could
be completely unaware of how much more enjoyable physical experience could be,
however, never having known anything different and most likely just having
become accustomed to his/her habitual way of being in his/her body.We involved with yoga already largely
understand that the body and mind are connected in powerful ways. Because of
that powerful connection, disrupted developmental movement sequences can affect
more than just one’s physical experience; the results can be reductions in
functioning and quality of life in emotional, social, intellectual, and
spiritual realms.
For instance, one has difficulty balancing
because he or she experienced emotional trauma at the age at which he/she was
beginning to fine-tune his/her vestibular system (the last step in the
developmental movement sequence, as described in the last post). Yoga theory
explains how balancing postures are more than about staying still when standing
on one leg; they additionally promote our abilities to focus, calm mental
“chatter”, and reach feelings of inner stability. It would therefore not be
surprising to learn that the described individual has difficulties focusing,
making effective plans and staying with them, and remaining calm and collected
in challenging situations. The result for him/her could be strained
relationships, occupational difficulties, and decreased potential for peaceful
life experience. In another example, another individual is uncomfortable with
touch, most likely from life-threatening illness in the infancy stage when
he/she would normally be learning the pleasures of touch. The unfortunate
results for the individual are difficulties with body image, lack of mental
flexibility in matters that involve the body, and even strains on intimate
relationships.
All of that considered, how could yoga help
such individuals correct imbalances and interruptions in their developmental
movement sequences? As the prior posts described, yoga has an incredible amount
of available tools that can access the tendencies, skills, and growth areas
related to those developmentally acquired movement patterns. Take our
individual with balancing troubles, for instance. Working specifically on
balancing, taking “baby-steps” to new breakthroughs and skills, could help the
individual get stronger in that physical ability that he/she could not gain at
an earlier time in life.
Instruction on balancing also most often
comes with guidance on working towards greater inner focus and calm (as it is
indeed necessary for one’s ability to physically balance). The individual would
therefore also have a safe space to work towards those skills, in his/her own
timing. The result could be not only a more stable and secure experience of
life in her or her body, but the same in other aspects of life. Considering our
second individual, he or she could work on postures that involve touch – such
as Lion Posture (Simhasana), binds, and mudras – in that same gentle and
progressive “baby-step” manner as his/her comfort with touch grows. He/she
could then, over time, likely become more comfortable with body-related matters
and physical intimacy.Through that the
individual could gain an overall enhanced quality of life.
Here I have described how specific
approaches in yoga might lead individuals with particular obstacles to their
highest possible well being. Many (if not most) yoga instructors guide others
in the practice in group – rather than one-on-one – formats, however. It may
therefore be useful to also look at how we can use this knowledge of
developmental movement patterning to guide a group of diverse individuals -
with various strengths and growth areas in body, mind and spirit – to greater
holistic well being. Stay tuned for the next, and last, post in this series
that will focus on that consideration. Namaste!
