June 21st is World Yoga Day! How did yoga originate, and what can it do for pain? Discover in this blog if yoga can be of added value for you.
The origin of Yoga
Yoga has been around for a while... Yoga was practiced in India as early as 5 centuries before Christ. Yoga is part of the Hindu faith there. It teaches people to control their mind, feelings and body. It is believed to bring people closer to God or Buddha. In Western countries yoga became really popular in the 'sixties'. The hippie era in which many influences from India crossed the world. Still, yoga continued to exist after the hippie era and is extremely popular nowadays. What does that have to do with? And does it also work for pain?
Controlling Mind, Feeling and Body
People who do yoga for longer periods of time actually confirm it all. Yoga is calm and relaxed. It calms you down, relaxes you. It makes your body supple and strong. The mobility improves and you learn to tolerate more (pain). Yoga has elements of mindfulness in it, with which you also train your attention.
Although it is always good to look for activities that suit you, yoga in theory has added value for everyone. Especially for pain complaints, yoga can calm down the 'alarm system' and slow down the message of danger. Also the physical side of yoga can certainly have added value, for example with low back problems. So yoga for pain is definitely a good option!
Getting started with yoga for pain
There are different ways to get started with yoga yourself. There are a number of real 'yoga influencers' who have lots of training online for every level, and often for free on YouTube! For example:
Yoga with Adrienne
Yoga with Kassandra
SarahBethYoga
But there are also plenty of apps that offer complete yoga programs! By searching for 'yoga' in your App Store you will quickly get a good overview.