Pelvic Pain: How Can Yoga Therapy Help?
The Pelvis can be considered one of the greatest feats of architecture and engineering around. It is built to withstand and enormous amount of stress and pressure during a persons lifetime. One of it's greatest feats is that it can expand to allow a brand new human being to move through it on her way to greet the world. That can cause a whole lot of discomfort to it's owner, but there are also ways we can help alleviate some of those painful experiences in natural and healthy ways.
The Pelvis: Structure and function
The pelvis is a key structure responsible for our balance and posture, and is home to our centre of gravity and reproductive organs.
Understanding how the pelvis functions mechanically can be the first step towards resolving pain in the body. For example, the pelvis is made up of 3 ligamentous joints, and how these joints move/or don’t move affects how we transfer weight from the feet to the spine.
Women may experience increased challenges, due to the affect of changing hormones on the ligaments and joints in the pelvis. This can happen if they are pregnant, postpartum or even if they have never had a child.
Ligaments in the feet and pelvis are mainly affected, and can contribute to long term challenges and pain. Most common problems associated with the pelvis include; sciatica, sacro-illiac (SI) pain or strain, low back pain, knee pain, hip problems/pain, shoulder tension, jaw pain and tension.
The Pelvis and Yoga
Experiencing the body and how it feels is a powerful tool in treating pain and discomfort.
Observing how the body moves, how we walk, how we hold our pelvis during the day, are the keys to resolving pain and improving function. A vital first step is learning to be more aware your pelvis--what position it may be in and how it moves best, how it feels when we make certain movements or get into certain positions.
The best way to approach healing in the pelvis is by cultivating mindful awareness, and by targeting the nervous system for rest and relaxation. Yoga creates the opportunity to learn to trust our bodies, while increasing awareness of pain signals that act as a messenger that we may heed and ultimately heal from.
Yoga as Movement Therapy
Yoga as therapy invites Learning through Experience: exploring how the body moves from the inside out. The approach of yoga looks at the whole person, and aims to source the root of the problem for long term healing.
Guiding principles include:
*Using the breath to bridge the body-mind connection
*Relaxation as a goal- Targeting the nervous system for healing
*The intention of inward focus
*Gentle and pain free approach
*Safe movements and injury prevention
*Movement as meditation
*Working with compensation patterns to improve posture and function
Yoga as Therapy should be gentle, slow and never to the point of pain.
Movements have specific intent- to nourish the nervous system, and target areas of the body for healing. Yoga invites the union of body, mind and spirit and from a therapeutic perspective, yoga is available to anyone at any stage of life and any stage of healing.
Yoga is particularly helpful during pregnancy and the postpartum period as ligaments and joints are under increased stress from a hormone called Relaxin. This hormone is very important as it helps relax the joints and symphysis pubis more than usual, allowing the baby to descend into the pelvis and eventually be born.
An excellent online resource for more information and resources about the female core and pelvic floor during pregnancy, postpartum and beyond can be found at: https://fsynergy.isrefer.com/go/pelvic/Matraea/
Lindsay Campa is a Registered Massage Therapist and Yoga Therapist with over a decade of teaching experience. Her classes are therapeutically focused; offering a safe and gentle approach to yoga and movement. She uses curiosity and humor, holds professional and safe space, and is passionate about learning about how the human body moves and functions.
"I love sharing with others the magic of how the body is connected. One part affects the next part, and how we hold ourselves informs our very sense of everyday life."
Yoga Therapy can assist in decreasing pain and recovering from injury by creating more functional movement and re-balancing of the nervous system.
Specialized group yoga therapy classes as well as individual yoga therapy sessions- ideal for those working to heal from injury or illness.
Please contact Lindsay 250-466-4607 for more information.