Achy back making you want to beg whoever has your voodoo doll to have mercy and just stop? Yes, back pain can get unbelievably nasty and has a number of factors to blame, from negligence and poor posture to lack of exercise and nutrition deficiency, as well as psychological health and rising stress levels.

Once the pain has invaded the system and started to boom, there seems to be no other way but to build support with a stash of painkillers. As a powerful frontline pain defense tactic, medications of the ibuprofen or naproxen category are prescribed routinely all the time for injury recovery or post-surgery progress, their gradual but detrimental side effects ignored for express relief and temporary symptom eradication. To smooth the progress of pain relief more sustainably, there is a need to look beyond invasive external medical applications and look more to the inside for self-empowering healing techniques, like yoga.

Yoga can, not only successfully unfurl rigid spinal columns with thorough rubdowns through gentle but invigorating massages but also inculcates a meditative mindset in the practitioner. This allows one to connect deeply with Self and untangle his/her physiological complications leading to the sensory manifestation of pain.

Why don’t you simply collect yourself and give these yoga asanas for back pain a try—

Bhujangasana or the Cobra

The Cobra is a great way to untangle the mess in an achy back. The posture effectively eases the back into a gentle arc with support drawn from the arms rooted rigidly in the mat, transmitting calming currents through the entirety of the lower back region.

How to Do

• Lie face down on a level surface, a yoga mat to be more specific.
• Keep your feet joined with the toes against the floor.
• Take a breath in, absorb the calm and the rootedness of your pelvis to the thighs, and on to the feet. Usher a feeling of stability.
• Keep breathing deep and slow and keeping consonance to the rhythm, start lifting your chest from the floor with the support of the arms. Feel an arc gently forming as you move deeper into the posture.
• Narrow your hips and elongate your tailbone to the back, this will give your lower back a compulsive stretch, sweeping away the little rigidities gracefully.
• Feel the stretch distributed evenly along the spine.
• Come back on the floor with an exhalation.

Ardha Matsyendrasana or the Half Lord of the Fishes

The beauty of this fairly easy twist is the contraction of the torso and elongation of the backbone. Accompanying the pleasurable feeling happens a deepening of the breath.  If performed consciously, you can benefit from the opening of the hips in this posture which also works towards building strength in the muscular column of the upper back.

How to Do-

• Cross your legs and sit upright. You can use a folded blanket to sit on for cushioning.
• Pivot your seated posture on your sitting bones and be aware not to lapse backward
• Place one hand on the knee of the opposite side, and the fingertips of the other hand glued to the ground behind the hip for support.
• Lift your spine as high up as you can and begin to twist in one direction.
• Regulate your inhalations with the lengthening of the spine and the exhalations to the twist.
• Use the hand kept on the back to regulate the twisty motion.
• Cross your legs to the other side with the next move.

Marjaryasana or the Cat Stretch

The cat stretch is a great yoga pose for back pain that can restore poise and calmness in the upper torso. Creating a suspended arc in the back, the posture simultaneously relaxes the back and fortifies with the strength to the core.

How to Do–

• Come down on your knees and hands, forming a tabletop with your back.
• Check for the knees to be just below the hips, with your wrists, elbow, and shoulder blades kept perpendicularly to the floor.
• Turn your gaze to the floor but your head must not hang loosely.
• Now arch your back towards the ceiling without your shoulders and knees straying from the position.
• Come back to the level tabletop position with a deep inhalation.

If this feels good to a strained back, give the spine a deepened curvature with the cow stretch following the cat. In this back arching stance, curve your spine into a waning crescent moon instead of the curve upward as it is in the Cat.

Adho Mukha Svanasana or the Downward Dog

This one is for stretching the whole body. A standing posture integrated with a slight inversion, this yoga pose can work as a transition between postures, as a resting stance, as well as a core strength building exercise. With downward dog, your shoulders and upper arms will experience a firm musculoskeletal toning, while a constricted spine will go through pleasurable elongation.

How to Do-

• Keeping your knees directly below the hips and your hands stretched forward to your shoulder, come on the mat on your haunches.
• Start lifting your knees away from the floor with your hands spread in fan on the ground, keeping in synchrony with an exhalation. You can bend your knees bit slightly and allow your heels to lift from the floor, forming your body in a pyramid with the mat as its base.
• Push your rump outward toward the ceiling as you draw your ankles more inwards.
• Firm up the arms and press down forcibly against the ground to feel more stability in your stretched out back. Keep your head hung consciously between your arms.
• Stay tuned in this position for a count of 15-20 breaths to feel the pleasure in the spinal extension.

Continue these yoga exercises for back pain to drive the pain away from where there can be no return!

To know about these Yoga Poses in further detail, explore our Yoga Teacher Training In India.