Preface:
Yoga and Pain Management
I can not over emphasize the importance of this chapter; not just for chronically ill and injured people, but for all yoga students regardless of health, physical ability, or age.
Although this chapter speaks primarily to people with chronic illness, severe injury, aging people, and those who work with them, do not be deceived by preconceptions: The very same logic and principles that applies to Recovery Yoga also applies directly to ExTension and for that matter, to all styles of yoga.
The following principles therefore, apply to everyone who does yoga: Disciplined athletes to couch potatoes ... weekend warriors to the chronically ill or injured ... beginners to advanced practitioners ... and everyone in between.
This chapter clarifies the important difference between "trying to do yoga" and "doing yoga;" and although subtle, knowing the difference has a major effect on your, and everyone else's, yoga practice. More importantly, knowing the difference between "trying" and "doing" is imperative for people in chronic pain and for those who are chronically ill.
Finally, for those of you who are in chronic pain: Before you read the following material and before you apply these techniques to your own practice, I need to caution you: These techniques, when correctly practiced, are designed to decrease your level of distress (reduce your stimulation); and in so doing, will decrease your chronic level of pain. Be cautious: Just because your chronic pain has subsided, does not mean you are "cured."
People who practice the following techniques don't realize they are still injured and will often, prematurely, resume strenuous activities that immediately reactivates their pain. My advice is to use the following techniques to reduce your pain ... and then, over the course of the next few days and weeks, apply the Recovery and ExTension Yoga system of exercising to progressively restore your flexibility, strength, and endurance. In so doing, you have a much better chance of "maximizing your potential and minimizing your liability."
Introduction:
Yoga and Pain Management
In the years following the onset of my illness, my approach to practicing and teaching yoga significantly changed. This chapter bridges the gap between how I now practice and teach as compared to how I previously practiced and taught when I was a normally healthy, full-time yoga teacher. Prior to my illness, I had extensive experience teaching students at all levels, and although I especially enjoyed working with athletes, I ironically developed an affinity for working with chronically ill and severely injured students. Little did I know then that I would myself become chronically ill, with reoccurring bouts of debilitating MS-driven physical disability.
Again, please do not be deceived by preconceptions. By personally practicing the concepts and logic I offer in this chapter, I've learned how to "do" my yoga in a way that is different than before, even though it might look similar to my practice and teaching before the onset of my illness. Although I still teach athletes as well as my many chronically ill and injured students, nothing is the same.
Today, in my sixth decade of life, if you were to watch my morning yoga practice, you would never know I have a debilitating chronic illness; that in the mid 1990's, after experiencing near paralysis in both arms and shoulders and having become clinically depressed while gaining nearly 30 pounds, that I would ever do yoga again; much less the advanced yoga I'm now able to do.
As I reflect back to those years before my illness, when I was a full-time yoga teacher and neuromuscular therapist, I know I did good work in helping my chronically ill and injured students. However, now that I have experienced chronic illness for myself with ongoing bouts of severe debilitating pain, I have direct experience of what chronic illness and pain feels like; and had I known then what I know now, I would have done things differently in helping my students to facilitate their wellness and healing.
The logic and methodology by which I now personally practice and teach yoga defines this chapter. Although I instruct chronically ill and injured people to begin their yoga program differently than healthier people, the very same principles and logic described in this chapter are the very same principles I teach to everyone; athletic or not, younger or older, regardless of health or physical ability.
The beauty of the system is that by applying its logic: (1) chronically ill and injured students are able to experience the unmitigated joy of relief as they learn how to establish their basic yoga foundations; (2) physically capable students are thrilled to finally experience a significant yoga work-out that expands their flexibility, strength, and endurance, all without the pain or strain, and especially without the inevitable soreness and stiffness that used to follow afterwards; and (3) because they are no longer "trying to do" their yoga, more athletic yoga students are learning how to "do" their vigorous yoga with less potential of exacerbating old injures or of creating new ones.
Yet surprisingly, all these groups are using the very same principles, logic, and concepts as presented.
imperative
End of Pain Management - Part 1
Click here for Part 2
Pain Management Continued
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