Yoga Poses Aren’t Always the Answer—Sometimes You Need to Rest

by Nina

Unfortunately, there is a common misconception among some folks that yoga poses can provide the solution to every single physical problem we might experience, even problems caused by overuse of a certain muscle or body part. I’m very concerned about this because I’ve observed that believing yoga poses can fix everything causes some people to continue practicing even when they have a problem that would be best resolved by resting. And that can mean suffering from unnecessary pain and/or even making the condition worse.

This came up recently when we at Yoga for Healthy Aging heard from two different practitioners who wanted to know what types of yoga poses would help them with a specific condition, in one case for back spasms and in another case for a painful foot condition for which rest is advised.

So today I thought I’d share four commonsense suggestions for what to do if you have an injury or physical problem that’s causing pain and you don’t know whether or you should continue practicing yoga.

1. Get a professional diagnosis.

The first step is to get a professional diagnosis instead of guessing about what is wrong with you because there are some conditions, such as frozen shoulder and osteoarthritis, where continuing to move, even if it causes pain, is the best medicine but there are many other conditions where in order to heal you should rest the area. This is so important! And I tell everyone who comes to me with an unexplained pain somewhere or other and wants suggestions for yoga poses to do to start with this step.  Really there is no way for me or any other yoga teacher or yoga therapist to offer beneficial suggestions for what yoga to do or not to do until there is a diagnosis of your condition by a medical professional. And yoga teachers are not qualified to make these diagnoses (see Drawing a Line in the Sand: Where Yoga Teachers Should Not Go)

For some advice about when and how to get a diagnosis from Dr. Baxter Bell, see Friday Practical Pointers: Get a Diagnosis!

Once you have a diagnosis, find out whether the recommended treatment for the condition you’ve been diagnosed with is to move the area in question or to rest it. And ask lots of questions so you’re sure about which specific movements are okay and which are not, even demonstrating yoga poses if the medical professional doesn’t know what you’re talking about.

2. Follow recommendations to rest.

The second step is to follow any recommendations to rest that you receive, whether that means resting a certain body part or even resting your whole body.

I know personally that hearing you can’t do certain yoga poses—or even any yoga poses—can be very hard. You miss doing your practice and you miss going to yoga classes. But I also know—because I healed from an injury to my sacroiliac joint by taking a break from yoga—that recovering from a painful condition through resting is totally worth it.

But for many conditions, you can rest the part of your body in question and still find ways to many of your favorite yoga poses.

3. Figure out what kinds of yoga poses you can do, if any, during your recovery. 

Once you know which movements you can make and which you cannot, you can figure out—or get advice about—which yoga poses to do, if any, during your recovery. You may very well be able to do some kind of movements while avoiding others, and you can tailor your practice around your limitations. This may mean choosing only certain poses to practice or changing the way you practice certain poses. For example, if you have a shoulder injury that needs rest, you could do many of the standing poses with the arm that needs to rest in a neutral position.

You can either work with your yoga teacher or a yoga therapist to modify your practice, or you can simply make a list of poses you can still do, either the classic way or modified, such as practicing the leg position of a pose without the arms.

For example, my post Doing Yoga Without includes suggestions I gave to a reader who had a shoulder injury and my post What To Do When There Is Something You Can’t Do includes some suggestions I gave to a reader who had a foot injury that required rest.

You may find, however, that it is recommended you take a break from doing any yoga poses. For example, when I was finally diagnosed by a chiropractor who was also a yoga teacher as having injured my sacroiliac joint from overuse (I used to do an active practice for two hours every day), she recommended that I take a temporary break from practicing yoga poses and walk instead for my physical exercise.

At this point, you can still practice yoga by doing Savasana, yoga nidra or other forms of guided relaxation, meditation, and pranayama.

This is what I did until my chiropractor deemed me ready to return to yoga, and even then she had me gradually ease back into the practice by starting with only supported inverted poses, then moving on to symmetrical poses only, and so on until I was back to full practice.

4. For yoga injuries, after you recover, change your practice to prevent the injury from recurring. 

If you have an overuse injury that is related to yoga, it’s a good idea to learn more about what caused the problem and how you might change your practice permanently to prevent the condition from developing again.  Maybe you need to change up your practice so, for example, you don’t do weight-bearing poses on your hands or seated forward bends every single day. Or maybe there is a good counterpose you can do after a sequence of poses that may help counteract potential problems caused by doing certain poses. For example, adding in strengthening poses can counteract problems caused by overstretching certain areas.

For my sacroiliac joint injury, I learned that always doing a mild backbend after a session of forward bends or twists would reset my sacrum that the other poses may have pulled out of alignment. So since then, I always add in a little backbend after forward bends and/or twists not only in my home practice but in a class as well. It has been many years since I recovered from that injury, and, so far, so good!

 

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