Should yoga hurt?
The old adage that most of us grew up with ‘no pain no gain’ I would say, is true in some senses, but does not necessarily apply to yoga practice. Pushing through pain in your yoga practice often leads to imbalances and more tension in the body. I would say in your yoga practice you want to be working around 85% in general. Having those breakthrough days often leads to setbacks. Slow and steady wins the race.
Coming from a background in competitive sports and having spent a large part of my life pushing my body, often beyond its limits in my younger years, there aren’t many health benefits from pushing our bodies too hard. Especially to breaking point.
For those of you who are looking to balance sports with yoga, please refer to the following post:
Taking sports aside from this post where we are using our body to achieve a goal, the question often comes up from students about whether they should feel pain at all in their yoga practice. It’s a good question.
Pain, in my opinion, is very subjective, and every student will have a different relationship to pain, and some pain will have a stronger reaction to other types depending on our previous experience.
The body remembers injuries and will always edge on the side of caution when it comes to reentering an old wound or scar tissue, for example. The body is doing its job protecting you, but more often than not it is too cautious. To heal the body, we need to coax the body and nervous system back into a space where we feel safe and relaxed. This is largely done by the use of the breath. This is one of the main differences in yoga practice from other health-related practices.
How we feel about pain can differ from person to person and, in my experience, from teaching and practice, those who are more optimistic about themselves, life, possibilities that can happen rather than what can’t tend to have less pain in their body. The glass half full, the individual will tend to look at pain and tension as something that is temporary and can change and heal. Which is of course true.
Visiting a health care professional who sends you from their office with optimism about your injury rather than doom and gloom and saying that you may have to stop doing the things you love can have serious consequences for your state of mind, wellbeing and, of course, pain.
The mind is a very powerful thing and pain can escalate just from feeling negatively about it. The body has an amazing ability to heal anything in the right environment. Love, positivity, a focused mind and a correct method of moving will heal your body and reduce the sensation of pain.
Marichyasana C - Movement heals
Yoga is like wanting a flower to grow. A flower can’t just be pulled from the group upwards to get taller and stronger. It will break when forced and not placed in the right environment.
A flower needs lots of things in a balanced way to grow into potentially a strong tree. The sun, water, fertile ground and time. We need patience and the correct method for the most beautiful organisms on the planet to grow. The right environment is needed.
Flower of change in yoga
Within this right environment, some stress, tension and resistance is also needed. This resistance can incur what we might call pain. Some pain and soreness are OK when managed correctly. Some stress is good, but too much is chronic. It’s all about balance.
When we think positively about the method we are applying and see good results, creating a strong supple body, some pain is OK. It’s actually part of the process when we are gaining strength, mobility and suppleness.
To feel no pain whatsoever is to be dead. Only dead things feel no pain sensation.
Over time and with a good teacher, students discover their own boundaries with tension and learn to trust their intuition about what feels good and what doesn’t. Relying solely on an external source has its limitations and what an authentic yoga practice teaches you is how to heal your body yourself. This is life-changing.
Some students of mine were having this conversation with me recently and the outcome was that some pain is OK when you know you are working through something. Unlike sports where we are largely training our nervous system to ignore the feedback of the body to achieve a goal. In yoga, we are training ourselves to listen to that feedback with the utmost concentration and focus. Over time, you become much better at listening.
A podcast I carried out some time ago goes into this in more detail for students who wish to learn more.
Episode 61: Pain, Chronic Pain and Sensitivity.
