Are you looking to ease your back pain to allow you to be more active and improve your overall quality of life?  The details of a new study that appeared in Reuters found that weekly yoga classes eased pain and improved functioning in some people with  chronic lower back pain.  What was a bit surprising is that yoga sessions weren’t any better than regular stretching classes.  Here are a couple of key excerpts:

“We’ve known for a while… that exercise is good for back pain,” said Dr. Timothy Carey, from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, who wrote a commentary published with the study.

Yoga, he told Reuters Health, “seems to be a perfectly good option for people with back pain, but it is not a preferred option.”

The questionnaire rated daily “disability” level on a scale of zero to 23, with 23 being the most severe. At the 12-week mark, the exercise groups had dropped from an initial average score of 10 in the yoga group or nine in the stretching group to between four and five in both groups. The people who received the book started with an average score of nine and at 12 weeks had dropped to about a seven.

More participants who did either yoga or stretching also said that their back pain had diminished or was gone. Sixty percent of people in the yoga group reported improvements in pain, compared to 46 percent in the stretching classes and just 16 percent of people who only got the books.

Go read the whole article here: Yoga and stretching both ease chronic back pain. Then, go to our health challenges page and incorporate either/or both into an easy, fun, flexible DE challenge of your own with your friends, family or colleagues. Takes less than 10 minutes to set things up!