When Yoga becomes a painkiller
The human body is a very contradictory organism.
I cannot sleep on my back as I have a sinus headache, which lying on my back aggravates. But if I sleep on my tummy, my chronic lower backache gets worse and stiff my dawn. So I usually try to sleep on my side, curled up like a baby. But once I fall asleep, my body does whatever it pleases. I end up waking in the morning with either a headache or a backache, depending on what posture my body decided I should sleep in.
Fortunately, none of these are really crippling conditions, and they normally disappear during my morning workout, usually tennis. And I can be running, twisting, jumping, bending without a care in the world. All the same, the backache is ever present, especially if I’m immobile for a while, be it at my desk or in my bed. It’s clearly visible in the way I hobble around or struggle to bend from my lower back. The doctors I have met over the years weren’t of much help beyond the mandatory painkillers, which I politely refused.
Last week, my wife asked me to join her and my daughter for a ten day yoga class. I usually prefer to learn stuff on my own with the help of the internet. But I felt a teacher might make a difference in this case, so I signed up. My daughter’s issue was a worrying inability to focus on her studies, which my wife felt could be sorted out by detoxifying her with a gadget-free hour of yoga. As for my wife, she had attended the class previously and vouched for its effectiveness in curing her work-related neckache.
Turned out, I was the only male in the class of seven students with ages varying from 14–50. Indian women are these days surging ahead of men in all fields! But there’s another factor at play here. I can barely reach my lower shin when bending forward because of my stiff back. However the instructor doesn’t push me to catch my toes. She just asks me to do what’s comfortable without stressing my body. That’s a very different approach from sports where you are expected to push your limits all the time. Yoga not being pushy is I think one reason why it’s popular with women.
Anyway, the first day of the yoga class was a lesson in suryanamaskar which is a basic set of yogic stretches, followed by a few minutes of meditation. The physical part was not too difficult for me as my tennis keeps me reasonably fit and flexible. The meditation was a challenge as my mind kept running after thoughts and wouldn’t switch off. The second day, the instructor added a posture for upper backaches, and on the third day, she taught us a posture for lower backache, which was what I was waiting for. It was something like shown in the image.
It was only when I did the posture that I recalled a physiotherapist once suggesting a similar exercise some years ago. In yoga, it’s a bit more of a holistic approach as the instructor would complement the backward bend with a forward bend posture, and go through an elaborate sequence of movements, breathing, and relaxing while doing the asanas or postures.
Having an instructor was definitely better than learning on my own. She would give tips that I may not have noticed while doing it myself. Like when she asked me to roll my hips from side to side on my hands to help relax the body, just before raising my legs. She also insists on perfection in execution. Like when she repeatedly straightened my knees which would sneakily bend without my being aware of it.
The attention to detail seems to have paid off. I could feel my sore back stretching while doing the posture. What’s more important, I can now get up after sitting in a chair for a while, without feeling that tightness in my lower back. Since I work at a desk, this has been a real lifesaver. My back is still stiff every morning, but not as much as it was before. That is a good talking point when my restless kid insists the whole yoga class is a waste of time.
Today, ‘Week 2’ of the classes begins. Now that my back has received some relief, I just wish the instructor is be able to get through to my kid.
There’s a lot more to this ancient Indian science than meets the eye.
