No matter how much time you spend at a desk or scrolling through TikTok in your free time, there’s a good chance your back doesn’t feel too warm. If you always sit hunched over at your desk and have an un-ergonomic setup, you may even suffer from lower and upper back pain regularly. You can find relief through movement practices such as yoga.
Learn how yoga can relieve your back pain and prevent it from recurring. Here are six yoga poses for back pain, along with tips to keep in mind while doing them.
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Yoga Benefits For Back Pain
As a yoga teacher, Lindsay Monal, R.Y.T., says that flowing through a yoga practice can also help relieve back pain. She explains that a lack of flexibility, mobility and sedentary lifestyles often causes back pain. Sitting all day prevents movement in your upper and lower back. Yoga can ease both your short- and long-term discomfort when you practice it for back pain.
Yoga Tips For Back Pain
Monal advises that not every yoga class or video is the same, and you should not follow along with just any online course. She suggests that instead of practicing vigorous forms of yoga, like Ashtanga or hot yoga, which may worsen your symptoms, you find specific yoga practices designed to help you relieve back pain. Spreading the shoulder blades apart and creating space across the back can relieve upper back pain, says Monal, with postures like the eagle pose.
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Six Yoga Poses To Relieve Back Pain
These yoga poses for back pain will help you feel better regardless of your back issue. Warm up your body before you begin with a walk, cat-cow, or downward-facing dog.
- Cobra Pose (Bhujangasana)
- Seated Side Stretch (Parivrtta Janu Sirsasana)
- Seated Eagle Arms (Sukhasana with Garudasana Arms)
- Gate Pose (Parighasana)
- Supported Fish Pose (Matsyasana)
- Reclined Hand-to-Big-Toe Pose (Supta Padangusthasana)