Bothered by Chronic Pain? Here’s How Yoga Helps

When you go to a doctor’s office for a condition, you expect them to offer a treatment plan. You’d want a cast for your broken bone, for example. You might anticipate being prescribed medication or even physical therapy.

Dr. Halina Snowball has another tool in her arsenal that she might recommend: yoga. While it may not be commonly used in traditional treatment plans, a growing body of evidence shows that it can be beneficial for your body in a range of ways. That makes it a useful treatment option for a number of conditions, including chronic pain.

If you’re living with persistent pain, come see Dr. Snowball at Integrated Pain Solutions in Stamford, Connecticut. She can develop a personalized treatment plan that might include yoga. Let’s take a look at why.

Chronic pain types for which yoga has proven helpful

Plenty of people who practice yoga will tell you it helps them feel better. You don’t have to settle for anecdotes, though. There’s a large body of evidence, backed by scientific studies, showing that yoga can alleviate certain chronic pain types.

Notably, the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health, a branch of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), reports that yoga helps with:

Arthritis
Fibromyalgia
Headaches
Lower back pain
Neck pain

For many of these conditions, the recommendation is to apply yoga as part of a mind-body approach.

The mind-body connection and managing your pain

Yoga stretches and strengthens your body, which can help it manage painful conditions better. Getting stronger can take pressure off your joints, improving arthritis pain, for example.

Just as importantly, though, yoga affects your brain. Chronic pain changes your brain structure, decreasing the amount of gray matter. Yoga fights back against those changes.

When you regularly practice yoga, it helps your brain protect and develop more gray matter. This can affect your pain processing, helping you feel less discomfort even if nothing else about your condition has changed.

Getting started with yoga

Another great thing about yoga is that it’s a medication-free treatment option. There’s no recovery period afterward, and you don’t have to worry about side effects (although you might notice some soreness as your muscles get stronger).

To make it easy to get started, Dr. Snowball offers yoga in two forms. First, you can come to one of the group classes we offer at our office. If you’re not ready to try yoga in front of others, though, we also offer private, in-home yoga instruction.

If you want to see how yoga could improve your chronic pain, we can help you get started. Call our team at 203-293-0549 to request an appointment or book one online today.