Yoga for pain - fibromyalgia - first steps

Although your symptoms may never disappear completely yoga and diet can bring considerable ease to the condition.
Please consult your doctor before practicing yoga.

Please read the disclaimer on the blog before following these videos http://flexiladies.blogspot.co.uk/p/disclaimer.html 

Article to accompany this series-http://flexiladies.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/introduction-to-series-yoga-to-help.html

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Copyright © 2015 Flexiladiesyoga

Fibromyalgia can be a distressing condition. Symptoms include pain in your muscles and joints, sensitivity to touch, muscle spasms, fatigue, headaches, dizziness etc. More women are affected than men. There are several theories as to the cause of fibromyalgia. It may be due to hypersensitivity in the nervous system, it may have a genetic cause where symptoms only show when there is a trigger such as an illness or accident or it may be linked to stress or depression. It does seem to be that people with fibromyalgia have lower levels of serotonin, a neurotransmitter in your brain and gut that influences mood. Some, including myself, believe that there is a link to 'leaky gut' syndrome. I will talk more of this next week.

Yoga can help in many ways such as:- 

• Yoga breathing techniques, by encouraging deeper breathing, help bring more oxygen into your body. This can help relieve fatigue and stress. Some breathing techniques which involve sound such as Ujjayi Breathing or Humming Bee Breath are calming for the brain.
• Chanting sets up healing vibrations in your body.
• By balancing the chakras which influence your physical and emotional body, yoga can improve your physical and mental wellbeing
• Gentle backbends open up your chest encouraging deeper breathing while forward bends and gentle inversions bring the oxygenated blood to the brain which relieves fatigue and stress.
• Yoga can gently open your body enhancing circulation of blood and lymph. The blood can nourish painful muscles and lymph carry away any toxins that are affecting the muscles.
• Yoga can reduce inflammation in muscles and joints but little is known about how exactly this works. It may be that when under stress, physical or mental, the body loses its ability to regulate the inflammatory response.
• Yoga stretches relieve muscle tension.
• Yoga can restore restful sleep by calming your mind and relieving tension in your muscles.
• Meditation and visualisation are 'tools' to aid the healing process. Meditation releases 'endorphins' from the brain which are natural painkillers. 

In this first video, my focus is to encourage you to breathe more deeply and to practice some poses which release healing energies. I am conscious that fatigue may be a problem so I have made the video shorter than I would usually. I would suggest that you follow this video by practicing the meditation on the following link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpwrIT3FnSQ 

Next week I will offer some dietary advice that may help with fibromyalgia and another video to help with fibromyalgia. In the meantime you may wish to practice the breathing technique that I show you in this video and the poses which release healing energies. Please let me know how you are getting on.

Namaste

Janet x