Have you ever wondered why your back starts hurting on holiday? The opposite could of course be true, as happy times have been known to relieve pain. However, if your back pain gets worse on a trip, it could be caused by carrying heavy luggage, different mattresses you’re sleeping on, long car journeys and even emotional tensions with your travel companions. When it comes to car journeys, sitting still for a long time in a slouchy position can indeed cause the back muscles to tighten and hurt. Because we can’t always avoid long-distance driving, it’s good to know some tips and yoga stretches to prevent back tightness and pain. Read on if you would like to know some back care tips for long car journeys.

I republish this blog every summer, to remind you how effective these simple yoga practices are during hot weather. Hot summer days can make us feel heavy and tired. We end up sweaty, red in the face, exhausted and with leaden legs. This is the result of the body working hard to keep its temperature and internal conditions in equilibrium. Our body is trying to keep the optimum inner temperature by raising the heart rate, dilating blood vessels and sweating. The dilated blood vessels bring more blood nearer the skin so it can cool down as the sweat evaporates. Help your body by avoiding extreme heat and drinking plenty of water. You can also try these two ‘hot days, cool yoga’ tricks: a breathing technique that can help you feel refreshed, and a yoga position that is a miracle cure for heavy legs.

(more…)

Lower back pain, buttock pain, extreme exhaustion, stiffness after inactivity, pain that doesn’t ease with rest, difficulty breathing deeply … all these are symptoms of ankylosing spondylitis, also known as radiographic axial spondyloarthritis. Because this form of arthritis typically starts in teenage years, it’s not easily diagnosed and sometimes dismissed as “growing pains”. It’s more common in men, which can make it even harder for women to receive the right diagnosis. Ankylosing spondylitis (AS) is a chronic condition for which there’s no cure at the moment. Therefore, managing AS is all the more important: the right medication can relieve the pain and control the symptoms. Also the right exercise and a healthy lifestyle are crucial. This blog about yoga therapy for ankylosing spondylitis and axial spondyloarthritis discusses how yoga can help with the physical symptoms as well as the emotional stress associated with this chronic condition.

There is a correlation between tight hamstrings and back and neck pain. Similar to other muscle groups in the body, the hamstrings don’t function independently. Firstly, they are connected via tendons to bones. This means they can cause skeletal misalignment when tight. Equally important, they are enveloped by fascia, connective tissue that runs along the whole back of the body. The particular fascia of the back body is called the superficial back line or superficial dorsal line and runs from underneath the feet to the top of the skull. In this blog, I describe what causes the hamstrings to be tight and how hamstring flexibility can impact back and neck health. The hamstring stretches that are suggested below are generally safe to do when you have back pain. They do not include bending forward to reach your toes!

If you sometimes find yourself overwhelmed and frazzled, this blog is for you. Physical pain or stress make it hard to find calm and joy, but even social media and the bombardment of negative news can create a constant underlying anxiety. It takes away our ability to have fun, to laugh unreservedly, and to marvel at the beauty of simple things. In this Easter weekend blog, I suggest some simple ways of finding calm and joy by focusing on the here and now. They are simple but powerful ways to revitalise and nourish yourself.

In these changeable and uncertain times, yoga can help us feel more balanced and at ease. This blog with uplifting yoga that can also ease lower back tightness, is meant to help you move, breathe and feel good. Focusing on the movements and the breath helps us connect with what is here right now. It enables us to forget repetitive thoughts and worries for a while and connect with something enjoyable. The sequence is also designed to soothe lower back tightness.

(more…)

Whether you are a mother, grandparent, daughter or aunt, today’s yoga is for anyone in need of a nourishing and uplifting yoga session. It’s nourishing because caregivers give so much of their time to others that self-care is often put on the back burner. This session is also meant to be uplifting. After all, apart from tremendous love and joy, motherhood or a caring role can bring exhaustion, fears, guilt, and having to let go. Therefore, this self-care yoga routine centres on the heart area: stretching chest muscles, strengthening and lengthening the upper back, it mobilises and engages an area that can often be held quite tightly. I’ll start with some reflections on motherhood and mothers, and then we’ll move and breathe deeply.

This blog is for you if you were diagnosed with hip osteoarthritis. It is also for you if you would simply like to keep your hip joints healthy. Although osteoarthritis cannot be reversed, yoga for hip osteoarthritis can ease the pain by reducing stiffness and strengthening the muscles that stabilise and support the hips. Practising daily can help you manage the pain and slow down the progression of hip osteoarthritis. As opposed to other practices, yoga includes breathing and relaxation, which help with the stress that having arthritis can cause.

Back, neck or hip pain can radically improve when you sleep in the right position. After all, this is a position we hold for several hours. No wonder we wake up in pain during the night, or stiff in the morning. With my students, I have found that changing the sleep position is part of a better back care regime, alongside movement, relaxation and breathing practices. This blog gives a few suggestions about what to do for your back before going to bed. It then goes on to explain which have been found the best sleeping positions for people with back, neck or hip pain.

In my blogs about yoga for back pain, the emphasis is often on relaxation, releasing tightness and relaxing the body and mind. However, even with back pain we need a bit more ‘oomph’ sometimes. This need can be even more acute in January. We’ve had a seemingly interminable, grey January so far, with more than one ‘blue Monday’. The cure for me is to move in nature daily, whatever the weather, and to practise more stimulating yoga poses. These include standing poses, back bends and dynamic flow sequences. Unfortunately, quite a few of them could make your back pain worse. Try this feel-good yoga sequence if you want to feel energised in a way that is still gentle and caring enough for your back.