From The Professor:
This is one of the most commonly unanswered questions for yoga students, and for people in pain. It seems that the best answer has more to do with, “if pain is not a good guide for how much to exercise, what is?”
Pain is always individual and multifaceted, and it is not a good guide for how much to exercise when you have chronic pain.
By itself, pain alone is not an accurate indicator of how much to move. Solely relying on pain to tell you when to stop or when to modify a yoga pose requires that pain is a precise indicator of tissue health and tissue damage. It is not.
You know this based on experiences with pain, such as when you have been injured during activity but didn’t notice it until later, and when a small injury hurts a lot.
Science and experience tell us there is a “buffer” between the amount of movement that will increase pain and the amount of movement that will damage the body. *
When pain persists, it feels as if this buffer is gone, yet that’s how pain works.
When pain persists, the buffer between increased pain and tissue injury is larger, not smaller.
At Pain Care Aware we have created a series of movement guidelines to help you find your answer to the question of how to know when to move and when to modify what you are doing with your body. We suggest ‘listening to’ multiple alarms systems, rather than relying solely on pain.
We also suggest that you work with someone trained in pain science and pain care. If you are asking this question we assume your pain has been difficult to influence. Expertise, guidance and support can be keys to finding the just right amount of movement to help you improve.
From The Swami:
When I read your question the first thing that came to mind was; the yoga answer is Self Awareness. Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras offer a clear path to cultivating Self Awareness.
Sutra in Sanskrit:
2.1 “tapah svhadyaya ishvara pranidhana kriya yoga”
In this sutra we learn that Kriya Yoga is cultivating self-discipline, being established in self-study and living in accordance with Truth. This points to the conscious volitional actions we can take to realize Self:
- Be disciplined (Tapah) – act, think, and speak in ways that serve one’s highest goals
- Develop wisdom in knowing one’s self (Svhadyaya) – self-study and the study of higher learning = know ALL of self = body.mind.spirit Self-study
- Cultivate connection to something greater than self = Grace
What results from practicing Kriya Yoga?
- We become better able to regulate and adapt with detached efforts.
When it comes to living with persisting pain, self-discipline results with greater ability to regulate your thoughts, feelings and emotions, as well as our ability to adjust and adapt our movements and your relationship to life.
- We become more and more discerning, having used wisdom combined with intuitive knowledge to cultivate skill of knowing one’s self. When it comes to living with persisting pain the better we know Self the more able we are to maintain fervency and build resiliency, so it makes sense to become the number one expert on You!
- When we gain awareness, insight and trust in the process of growth and personal challenges and discover the divine intervention and beauty at play in developing our life skills, we begin to connect with and remember our true nature. Connection to Source IS your birthright to reclaim! AND, when we live with pain that persists this is easy to forget. Please remember and trust that pain is changeable and connection to Source may be a guiding light in the dark or a gentle inside voice while on the mat guiding us to surrender.
I know this is a long “yoga speak” answer but to know how much pain is okay for You while you practice yoga is best answered by You – different for every individual.
For me, the realization that I am my greatest teacher and guide at any given moment liberated my pain experiences, and Kriya yoga has shown me the way.
Svhadyaya illuminates deep understanding of pain science. Kriya Yoga brings it all home for me and I hope that it will for you as well. The PCA Movement Guidelines are a great place to start with your personal explorations.
* We thank Lorimer Moseley and David Butler for so clearly explaining this concept.
Pain is complex, movement guidelines are not rules, and every answer has nuances. For more information, access the free e-book narration of Understand Pain, Live Well Again.