Those long hours of staring at your computer may be doing more harm to your neck than your eyes.
More than 20 percent of the world’s population now suffers from chronic neck pain.1 And we’re not talking about waking up with a kink in your neck. This doesn’t just go away with time. And it brings with it a realm of other health problems such as headaches, facial pain, shoulder pain, and even numbness and tingling in other body parts.2
Good news out of Germany though…
There is relief out there—no drugs, no side effects, and it actually doesn’t have to cost anything either.
Researchers recently published their study in The Journal of Pain.3 They followed 53 people, average age of 57, who suffered from chronic neck pain. One group of subjects took part in self-care home exercise. The other group took part in another specific form of activity.
Researchers followed up with subjects at four and 10-week intervals. In the end, they found a significant improvement in neck pain in one specific group. And it wasn’t the self-care home exercise group.
What activity did the subjects take part in that dropped their pain levels and improved their overall quality of life?
Yoga.
That group had a significant decrease in pain intensity in just 10 weeks.
The authors of the study say that yoga helps tone muscles and release muscle tension. Both issues that can help reduce stress-related muscle tension.
But yoga doesn’t just help neck pain…
Researchers from the University of York in the UK studied the effects of yoga on chronic lower back pain.4
Their study followed 313 adults with 156 of them participating in a 12-week yoga class. The other half of adults received conventional treatment. In just three months the yoga group had better back function. The yoga adults continued to see improvement at six and 12 months.
The yoga classes given were geared toward beginners. Teachers put special emphasis and training on back care.
Lead researcher David Torgerson said their results show that yoga treatment for pain can provide short and long-term relief.
“Back pain is an extremely common and costly condition,” he said. “Exercise treatment, although widely used and recommended, has only a small effect on back pain.”
And he points out that yoga treatment comes with no side effects.
If you aren’t familiar with yoga you can easily enroll in classes. Or you can even buy a DVD or find tutorials online and reap the benefits at home.
No pills, no nasty side effects, and you gain mental clarity while relieving pain. You can’t go wrong.
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References:
1 http://sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/11/121127093857.htm
2 http://medicinenet.com/neck_pain/article.htm
3 http://jpain.org/article/S1526-5900(12)00779-1/abstract
4 http://annals.org/article.aspx?articleid=1033130