Yoga for Back Pain

Back pain is rarely about "tight muscles" alone. It's about neuromuscular patterning — your brain's learned patterns of tension. When you experience back pain, your nervous system goes into protective mode. Muscles brace to splint the injured area. This is useful short-term. But long-term, the brain forgets how to release that tension. The muscle becomes "amnesic" — stuck in contraction even when the original injury has healed.

Traditional stretching pulls on muscles. But if the nervous system hasn't released the contraction signal, you're just creating a tug-of-war. The muscle springs back — often tighter than before.

Somatic yoga works differently. Instead of forcing muscles to lengthen, we use gentle, awareness-based movement to help your brain remember how to release. It's called sensory-motor amnesia reversal. For example, with sciatica: the traditional approach aggressively stretches the hamstrings and piriformis, which often backfires. The somatic approach uses gentle pelvic tilts and releases to teach the piriformis to let go. The muscle releases because the nervous system released it, not because you forced it.

The body that advises the NHS recommends yoga as a first-line treatment for chronic low back pain — ahead of painkillers, ahead of anti-inflammatories, ahead of bed rest. A Cochrane Review analysed 12 randomised controlled trials and 1,080 patients and found yoga consistently improves back function and reduces pain. The NHS ran a 12-week yoga programme for back pain and participants reduced work absenteeism by 70%. The evidence is there. Your back pain has a tool.