Yoga as a Relief from Suffering

Yoga as a relief from suffering

Yoga for Pain Relief: Simple Practices to Calm your Mind & Heal your Chronic Pain, written by Kelly Mcgonigal, introduces how the main principals of yoga tradition can be used to offer release from physical, mental and emotional suffering. Interesting insights are given between how one can use breath to calm the nervous system and provoke a healthier way to respond to pain and stress, as well as how the mind can influence a particular situation and change ones perspective. Individuals with chronic pain find themselves regularly on guard, which causes the body to become more sensitive to any sensation of pain. Yoga teaches people how to use their mind as a resource for healing, rather than feeling at the mercy of an unpredictable body. Yoga will also give you an apparent way to take care of your body and train you how to take control of your circumstance even when in pain. Through the yoga value Ahimsa, self-compassion becomes a necessity to ensure individuals respect themselves. Yoga for Pain Relief demonstrates that healing is most effective with the union of the body, mind and, spirit to become more aware and, overcome chronic pain. The book highlights the use of breath, physical practice and meditation to become a source of comfort.

Breath can be a reflection of the condition of the body and mind, by developing breath awareness there is many advantages. It is the idea that by slowing down the breath a message is sent to the parasympathetic nervous system that we are safe and the body begins to calm down. Its doctrine holds that when the body and mind are in distress by emotions, sickness or pain, the breath becomes disturbed – hence, the opposite is true, when the breath is slow and calm the body believes it is safe and well. In the text, breath is the first step. Mcgonigal demonstrates that by focusing on the motions of the breath, every inhale and exhale you are directing your attention to these sensations rather than the pain. The author effectively explains the steps to releasing tension through Pranayama. To release tension from the body however, you must release it from the breath first. Through gentle stretching “you release the outer resistance (muscle tension), the breath can [then] “inflate” with far less effort. Your experience will be of a deeper breath with greater ease” (Mcgonigal 30). Breath awareness on Pranayama is one of the eight limbs of yoga, Wade Imre Morissette writes in his novel, Transformative Yoga: Five Keys to Unlocking Inner Bliss that breath is energy and when we send this energy to our spine and upwards towards the brain the “third eye is stimulated, it allows for greater awareness and a heightening of the senses” (Morissette 132). This awakening is what allows us to focus on freeing the body of pain and emotional distractions as well as to go deeper into the other branches of yoga. Pranayama is an accessible and “powerful way to quickly relax the nervous system, shifting the balance from the fight-or-flight sympathetic side to the more restorative parasympathetic” paired with asana and meditation or on its own individuals can inhale the toxins and any pressure they are holding on to and exhale to go of them.