Pain Management and Yoga

I am pulling together resources for the Pain Mangement Workshop (Saturday, April 14 at Lifespan Yoga) and will post my favorites here. Most of them I find after searching Google Images for the best picture of the condition. A detailed picture usually leads to a good site. I like this website where doctors and patients post about every condition under the sun http://painmuse.org/

Namaste and Jai Bhagwan in Yoga Class

This was copied from my old blog at www.lifespanyoga.com.  Originally posted 1.9.12. 

Namaste and Jai Bhagwan in Yoga Class

A yoga student asked what is the difference between two greetings we use in yoga classes "Namaste" and "Jai Bhagwan". Wikipedia says Namaste is derived from Sanskrit and is a combination of two words, "Namo Aste". "Namo" means 'bow' and "aste" means 'me to you'. Therefore, Namaste literally means "bow me to you" translated as "I bow to you". In other words, when one says "Namaste" to another it means "I salute or recognize your presence or existence in society and the universe."

The Urban Dictionary gives a nice explanation of Jai Bhagwan, which is used with Namaste in yoga classes. The literal translation of Jai, from Hindi to Engish is victory or victorious, and "Bhagavan", also written Bhagwan or Bhagawan, from the Sanskrit stem bhaga-vant, literally means "possessing fortune, blessed, prosperous" (from the noun bhaga, meaning "fortune, wealth","god"), and hence "illustrious, divine, venerable, holy". It is a greeting that basically means may the bhagavan - divine, prosperous, etc - in you be victorious.

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Tennis Ball Massage

Carmen often begins Lifespan Chair Yoga classes with foot massage. Each person gets a tennis ball or two and places them under their feet. Roll it around for a few minutes, hit a few pressure points and ahhhhh, feet relax.  

Making your own Shakti Mat

A shakti mat is like a wimps version of the bed of nails. It is great for pain relief though. Due to the little spikes hitting pressure points, it is a major distraction from the pain. You can learn more about them here http://www.shaktioriginal.eu/HowDoIUseTheShaktimat.aspx

I made my own shakti mat when a friend came to Lifespan Yoga friend and had extra discs. I used a scrap piece of material, sewed the discs on one by one, got my fingers pricked 1000 times, and then sewed another piece of fabric to that one so I could use it as a pillow case if I wanted to. I usually just use it as a mat for pain relief, and it may be easier to just buy it!

Pain Management at Home

Many of the students at Lifespan Yoga do gentle yoga for pain relief. In prep for our upcoming PainManagement and Yoga Workshop I am posting some of our favorite products for all natural pain relief you can do at home.

The following links will give you an idea of what is out there:

For sore necks we have the "V" massager at https://www.momentum98.com/acumasseur.html

Keep looking through the whole site though because there are a lot of cool things.

A serious tool for relief called the MuscleTrac Pro can be found at

http://www.flexcart.com/members/elitefts/default.asp?cid=143&m=PD&pid=4019

Send me more cool links if you know of something that works.