Is yoga safe and recommended to practice if you have back pain?
The other evening the entire office and myself, participated in an introduction to Yoga class at Cosmic Dog Yoga located on 2nd street (right behind our office). As a chiropractic and rehabilitation based office, the connection between the Yoga studio and our office is a given and going to this class was overdue.
The class was fabulous…better than I had expected in fact. A few things I was looking out for was whether I could refer my patients with back pain to this class and if it would be a benefit or a risk of further injury when they are in pain.
After completing my first yoga class at Cosmic Dog Yoga, here are my conclusions:
- The instructor, Colleen Millen, was very calming, welcoming and informative in making sure that everyone was on the same page.
- The class was small, only about 10 people so that the instructor could give proper attention to all the participants form, posture and alternative positions in case a person could not move in that direction.
- The class was focused on releasing muscle tightness and lengthening the posture which is a huge benefit with back pain, neck pain and other spinal injuries.
- After leaving the class, all six of us felt improved blood flow, flexibility and a sense of relaxation which can be helpful mentally, emotionally and physically.
I am not sure that I would recommend every single patient and case to this class in an acute phase of pain, but what I did learn from my experience is that the benefits of yoga for the spine is substantial and the healing of several spinal cases we manage, would benefit greatly from participating in an introduction class on a regular basis. I will now recommend and hopefully have a great number of my patients with chronic back and neck problems take part in Cosmic Dog’s yoga class so they too, can feel the many benefits that we experienced.
For more information on Yoga and Chiropractic email me at drhaque [at] haquechiropractic [dot] com.
