Yoga and Persistent Pain

What can yoga do for your on-going pain?

Pain is a human experience. Pain is a warning. Pain is protection. Day to day, on-going pain can be very challenging to manage and a disruption to our lives. It can be scary and isolating and can make it hard to live in the present moment. Yoga provides a wonderful opportunity here.

Often when we have pain, we go to see someone who will fix it, stop it or make it go away. We tend to forget that we can play a major role in managing our own pain. This is hard to understand until you understand the role of the brain and its alarm system, as well as our nervous system.

One of my passions is helping people who have higher degrees of stress and pain in their lives, learn simple tools and techniques to manage both. We can learn to improve our resilience (ability to bounce back more quickly). I have presented on yoga in pain care at Wellspring Calgary but also work with many students living with persistent pain.

How we use appropriate yoga to impact pain:

  • Reduce tension – enhanced sense of ease through the body, mind and spirit

  • Calm the nervous system – yoga encourages more time spent in the parasympathetic side where healing occurs.

  • Anchor yourself to the present – pain can often pull us from being present and yoga teaches us to come back to the now.

  • Shift/Teach focus – show your employees you care by investing in their health

“Yoga begins right where I am - not where I was yesterday or where I long to be.” 

—Linda Sparrowe

Offerings: I’m currently not offering these classes, but reach out if you need support and I can either provide some or refer you to someone who has a good program.

  • 6-week session - I’ll provide on-demand recordings to be taken at your convenience

  • Each week you’ll receive a recorded class and you have it for a week. 7 days to practice as often as you’d like.

  • After each week, the previous recording expires and you receive a new one to work with.

 

“A mind stretched by a new experience can never go back to its old dimensions.”

— Oliver Wendell Holmes