If you have back pain, you’ve probably heard that you have to strengthen your abdominal muscles. Strong abdominals help stabilise the trunk and spine during all your movements and help maintain a good posture. They also prevent the back muscles from doing overwork. Weak abdominals are likely to lead to back pain in the long term. However, keeping the abdominals strong may not be straightforward if you are suffering from a painful, weak or tight back. This blog shows you how to start with safe core strengthening when you have back pain. If you would like to alleviate back pain or prevent it, you are in the right place!

If you’ve ever had a slipped disc, you know how it is to feel excruciating pain in your lower back, sometimes accompanied by shooting pain down your leg. There can also be reduced sensation, tingling and weakness in one leg. The crippling pain may have put you out of action for at least a few weeks. In the best possible scenario, a slipped disc is diagnosed early. You would be told which movements exacerbate the condition and which can heal your spine. If, on the other hand, you keep doing the wrong things, such as slouching and lifting, you may suffer long-term pain and eventually further deterioration of the spine. Physiotherapists, osteopaths or chiropractors offer different treatments, with varying results. This blog discusses the intervention by yoga therapy. Yoga therapy for a slipped disc or herniated disc can teach you relaxation, the movements to avoid and the practices suitable for each stage of the recovery.

Many elements contribute to a bad or good posture. We can read that bad posture is generally caused by a sedentary lifestyle, an injury, our occupation or genes. But we don’t often come across the correlation between bad posture and our emotional world. In this blog, I address the connection between posture and confidence, between the way we hold ourselves and our emotions. Fear and a lack of self-esteem can make the front of the body contract. Because our self-esteem colours the relationships we find ourselves in, this Valentine’s Day blog gives you a nourishing practice to boost both good posture and confidence.

Perhaps like you, I’ve been listening with interest to Michael Mosely’s health advice on the BBC Radio 4 series “just one thing” and “just one long thing”. The advice from several experts about healthy ageing, preventing inflammation, diet and exercise is compelling. I would just add one more, long thing and say, do everything you can to prevent back pain! Back pain is draining and debilitating and makes you feel older than you need to be. The restricted movement and potential lack of activity due to back pain will lead to other health problems. Bad posture as in a rounded upper back, impacts your health and mood negatively and even makes you look old. In this blog I elaborate on the five pillars of back health, and explain how you can prevent back pain to support healthy ageing.

A person with perfect posture is very rare. Over our lifetime, it’s much easier to develop a misalignment of some kind, without knowing when it ever started. The change is often so gradual that our brain thinks it’s normal. One such gradual change is rounding the upper back forward, called kyphosis or hyper kyphosis in medical terms. There are several causes for this common misalignment of the spine. Yoga practices can often correct or at least prevent further rounding forward. This blog about ‘better posture: rounded upper back’ explains the causes of kyphosis, and what you can start doing about it with yoga.

There may be rest and good times in store for the festive season, but possibly also hours of driving, cooking, entertaining, tidying and decorating the house. We all take the required sitting, bending, twisting and lifting movements for granted … until our back starts to hurt. This blog is a reminder of how to keep your back safe, so you can prevent a relapse during the holiday season, or simply look after you back well. The good back-care habits described below demonstrate safer ways of moving while doing daily tasks. My guess is that you know this already, but the difficulty is to actually change the familiar ways of doing things and embrace the special care your back deserves. So I hope this is a useful reminder.

One of the major causes of neck pain and shoulder tightness is bad posture. Everywhere around us we can see people bent over a mobile phone, laptop or book. I worry about the repercussions of this daily activity for most of us. Our head is very heavy and the weight carried by the neck increases the more the head is held forward. Also hunching the shoulders forward brings the neck out of its healthy alignment and tightens the shoulder and neck muscles. I’ve often written about this topic, and struggled with neck pain myself before paying more attention to my posture and neck muscles. While some of my other blogs address posture and emotional holding, this blog is concerned with practical ways of releasing neck and shoulder tightness. To feel more relaxed and free in the upper part of the body, practise these yoga movements every day.

Before the end-of-year activities become too overwhelming, it’s good to establish a short daily practice to support yourself. If you have lower back pain or tightness, this could well increase during the stress of the festive season. A soothing practice of just 10 to 20 minutes a day can help you ease lower back tightness. Here are some easy and manageable self-care practices.

Have you ever wondered why your back is more painful when you are stressed or going through a tough time emotionally? Our physical health and mental health go hand in hand. In yoga therapy for back care, physical practices never work without relaxation and breath work. Together, these yoga tools look after the whole person. Because of the close relationship between back health and peace of mind, this blog focuses on a body part that is relevant to both, our feet! The aim of the different practices below is to help you feel healthier, happier, focused and calm. If you’re interested in back care, this blog is for you. If you’re finding it hard to feel inner peace with what’s going on in the world right now, this blog is definitely for you too.

Autumn is one of my favourite seasons. I love the food, the warm colours, the earthy smells. Where I live, the days are getting shorter, the nights cooler and we savour the last warm days. As we prepare the last quarter of the year and gear up for the festive season, this time of year can be very hectic and self-care too often forgotten. Nevertheless, September is a little like January: the new school year gives us an opportunity to make fresh resolutions. It may be tempting to just dive into the autumn activities, but how can we better support our wellbeing and avoid burnout towards the end of the year? This blog about back care and wellbeing helps you choose simple daily practices to manage your back health and your emotional wellbeing. Devoting at least 10 minutes a day to self-care can be the support we need to keep living a full life. The aim is to maintain our mobility, flexibility, strength and peace of mind.