Yoga
MS: can doing Yoga help, those of us that have
been
diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis?
Physical activity and MS exercise is extremely important for
individuals with MS, and yoga is now recognized as an
excellent means of reducing the symptoms
of MS and
helping with management of Multiple
Sclerosis symptoms, whether the individual manifests little or no
outward
signs of the disease, or whether they spend most of their time in a
wheelchair.
Yoga,
a holistic fitness exercise
program, that has been used with good success with many cases of MS,
has helped those with MS by producing greater physical
flexibility, reducing the amount of ms fatigue, bringing ms pain
relief,
reducing ms stress and bringing a sense of regaining control of their
life
again.
Yoga is gaining
popularity as a complementary health approach, where the students’
physicians are
recognizing yoga as an appropriate and safe treatment with potentially
profound
results.
The benefits
of yoga for ms
are obtained by doing yoga postures, doing stretching or flexibility
exercises, working with the
breath, and meditation that may also include increased body awareness,
release of
muscular tension, (that can help with relieving spasticity), increased
coordination and balance, increased flexibility and strength, control
over
fatigue, increased tolerance to heat, improved circulation and
breathing,
improved organ function (including bowel and bladder control), enhanced
alertness,
better management of stress and an overall feeling of well-being.
There are yoga instructors that
work primarily with
MS patients at many different levels of functionality, including those
that can
stand and walk some of those that are more confined to a wheelchair,
that require more
specialized help for the management of MS and with helping to reduce
the symptoms of Multiple
Sclerosis.
The course of MS is unpredictable.
The four
categories used to classify the clinical course in persons with MS are:
* Relapsing
and Remitting Multiple Sclerosis
* Primary
Progressive Multiple Sclerosis
* Secondary Progressive Multiple
Sclerosis
* Progressive
and Relapsing Multiple Sclerosis
There are
many forms of yoga that can be practiced that can be used for those
that have been diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis, that can help in many
ways to ease the symptoms of MS.
Yoga MS: how can doing yoga
help with each of the 4 types of Multiple Sclerosis?
Relapsing-Remitting
Multiple Sclerosis
Yoga can help with reducing
symptoms
of MS that include spasticity, reducing numbness and tingling,
balance issues and intolerance to
heat, just to name a few of the Multiple Sclerosis symptoms connected
with the Relapsing
and Remitting Multiple Sclerosis, one of the types
of Multiple Sclerosis.
If yoga exercises are done more
slowly, mindfully
and with complete awareness, this reduces the fatigue that can often
result
from doing exercises, when you already have MS
fatigue that you can be battling
with, even before you start to do the exercises.
It might be easier to join a yoga class,
where the instructor has worked with MS patients before and works well
with
choosing exercises that help reduce the symptoms
of MS, instead of causing more
flare ups and exacerbations.
Meditative practices and guided
imagery can also be
part of the practices that are included as part of yoga that help those
of us
with MS much more in allowing our bodies to relax distress and allow
our bodies
to start to repair and heal on a cellular level.
Yoga can also help to reduce the stress that
is often a problem for those of us that have been given the diagnosis
of
Multiple Sclerosis.
If
done over time,
the flare ups can also be reduced in severity and frequency and it can
also
help there to be more balance in our lives that definitely helps to
reduce the
Multiple Sclerosis symptoms in how often they appear.
Secondary-Progressive Multiple
Sclerosis
In some cases
of Secondary Progressive MS, the case may be advanced enough that a
person's symptoms may include near-blindness,
severe vertigo when reclining, slurred speech, and muscle weakness. If
the person with this form of MS is still able to transfer into a
folding chair or other type of chair other than being in a wheelchair
while performing the yoga exercises this would make it easier to do the
yoga poses and positioning. Two chairs can be used to
simulate
doing the poses on the floor.
The exercises and poses can be
modified, but often when the person is
confined to a wheelchair for extended periods of time, it is better to
do forward bends, seated back bends, hip openers,
twists and
modified standing postures, such as forward bends, and even a variation
of the warrior pose can help with increasing flexibility, strengthening
trunk muscles, reducing spasticity, increasing balance, relaxing the
nervous system, reducing stress and restoring balance to the overall
body. It is a good idea to also include strong
breath
awareness to get the diaphragm working again
and to get some life-force stirring inside the body.
Doing these poses and
exercises can also help to help
those that have been in a wheelchair for several years to regain
muscle strength and flexibility lost to years of being in a wheelchair,
and help the person to stand for brief periods. Even if the
person
is unable to keep up with any kind of physical activity in the
past, it has been found that if the person continues to faithfully
practice these poses and exercises, every day, and add more as they can
function better, this will help to maintain and increase how well the
person can function, more so than they could before they started doing
yoga.
Primary
Progressive Multiple Sclerosis
Progressive MS or Progressive
Relapsing Multiple Sclerosis
can also be helped by doing certain forms
of yoga. Even if more severe physical
limitations are present, such as limited range of movement of much of
your
body, as is sometimes be the case with some people that are diagnosed
with
Progressive
and Relapsing Multiple Sclerosis, some hands-on manipulation can be
done, where appropriate, of the arms, hands, and legs, but it may be
that the
main way that yoga can be more useful for these people, that have the
more
severe cases of Progressive MS, with more mindful breathing, dynamic
movement
of the parts of the body that do have movement linked to breath, and
guided
imagery meditation to
promote mindfulness and relaxation.
Progressive-Relapsing
Multiple Sclerosis
Progressive MS or Progressive
Relapsing Multiple Sclerosis
can also be helped by doing certain forms
of yoga. Even if more severe physical
limitations are present, such as limited range of movement of much of
your
body, as is sometimes be the case with some people that are diagnosed
with
Progressive
and Relapsing Multiple Sclerosis, some hands-on manipulation can be
done, where appropriate, of the arms, hands, and legs, but it may be
that the
main way that yoga can be more useful for these people, that have the
more
severe cases of Progressive MS, with more mindful breathing, dynamic
movement
of the parts of the body that do have movement linked to breath, and
guided
imagery meditation to
promote mindfulness and relaxation.
It may be that the obvious physical
limitations can
make it too difficult for the person assisting with performing the yoga
poses
and movements may not be able to do even a modified physical yoga
practice to a
great degree, because of the physical limitations. However, yoga does
not stop
at the physical level. It permeates into the other aspects of our
being, such
as the energetic, mental, emotional, and spiritual aspects. The work with these
patients can help to improve
the quality of the patient’s life on all these levels, even though what
can be
done with the yoga practitioner may not appear to the outside observer
as being
what is typically thought of as “yoga”.
If you are searching for a
yoga teacher, be
sure to look for one who has more experience working with
students with MS,
and that are willing to consider any other special concerns that you
may
have that is a result of your particular case of MS. Search for
a teacher
or instructor that does limit themselves or their students to
the physical
alone. Ask if they also use breath work, mindfulness based
meditation,
guided imagery, and if they are willing to experiment gently to find
the
appropriate practice for their students, keeping in mind the
students' needs and
desires.
Yoga can be
performed on your own using either charts or other
written instructions and diagrams for describing and picturing how to
do the yoga poses or a DVD of someone performing the Yoga poses can be
used that can allow you to follow along and do the yoga poses and
exercises with the instructor.
Which ever
way that you choose for
you to be able to develop a consistent routine of doing yoga MS exercises
can help to reduce MS symptoms
and help your body to function better by increasing balance,
flexibility, reducing muscle stiffness,
reducing spasms of legs, arms, hands or feet, reduce the effects of
stress on the symptoms of MS, along with many other benefits to you
that can help you to function better by reducing your MS symptoms.
