Remember the good times?

When you didn’t feel like you were getting a million needles plunged into your lower back?

Of course you’re lucky if that’s the only pain you feel as a result of sciatica. The longer you decide to push back curing the pain, the more likely you are to increase the different types of pain you’ll start feeling. Have you started to feel pain radiating through your leg? All the way down to your feet and through to the tips of your toes.

So let’s solve this together so that you don’t get to that point. Even if you experience all the symptoms, the pose we’ll be analyzing in this article will help.

It will help you whether you have acute (a few hours to a few weeks/months) or chronic (6+ months) sciatica, however, it won’t cure you if you’ve had sciatica for longer than a few days. You’ll have to do a little more than just one pose to get out of debilitating pain.

And that’s where the correct treatment comes into play.

Here’s what we’ll be focusing on in this article:

• How to Relieve Your Sciatica Pain

• Why is This Pose Beneficial for Me?

• How to Treat Your Sciatica Pain

How do I relieve my Sciatica Pain?

When some people hear “relieve” they might associate that with getting rid of something entirely. That is incorrect. To relieve something does not mean to cure it.

To relieve means to reduce something or to make something less severe.

This is where the Happy Baby Pose (Ananda Balasana) comes into play (no pun intended).

1. Lay down on your back.
2. If you have one leg that hurts more than the other, or an injury on that leg, lift up that leg first towards your chest. Make sure it’s positioned so that your shin is perpendicular to the ground.
3. Do the same with the other leg. Make sure your knees are bent comfortably and that your legs are far apart enough that they are on either side of your body.
4. Reach your hands towards your toes, feet, calves, or pants. Whatever feels most comfortable for you is what you should do. Flexibility is not your aim; relief is your aim.
5. While in the pose, wiggle your neck slightly from side to side as to ensure that you are not straining neck muscles in the process. Wiggle your shoulders as well if you start to feel pressure in that area.
6. When you reach the moment when you feel no pain in your lower back (and you will), start wiggling your hips very slightly. Make sure you are doing this to a level that is comfortable for you. This will move every vertebrae in a way that will free the sciatic nerve from the pinched area.
7. Remember to breathe.

Whether you’ve had sciatica pain for a few hours or a few months, this will ease the jarring pain immediately. You might still feel discomfort for a few days, but it won’t be painful.

Why is the Happy Baby Pose Beneficial for me?

You’ve probably come across people performing yoga exercises that would have no benefit to you whatsoever because of the way in which they perform them. These include poses resembling handstands, elbow stands, pretzels, and more…

This has skewed your view of yoga practice making you think that yoga is only for the “super flexible and young folk”. This could not be further from the truth. Yoga can be done by anyone but you have to find what’s comfortable for you in order to do it correctly. This means you have to modify the way certain yoga poses are shown by people who have been practicing the way of life for years.

Modifying yoga poses to fit your needs not only improves your physical condition but prevents you from injuring yourself further.

There are many different reasons why people practice yoga. Your reason would be to relieve your sciatica. So it makes sense to practice yoga in a way that would relieve your sciatica, right?

People who practice yoga with no pain and/or no injuries have a drastically different aim than those of us with pain and/or injuries. Where people without any injuries aim to calm their breathing, their body, and their thoughts, those of us with injuries can aim for the same goal but add restoration and relief to those goals.

How do I get the Right Sciatica Treatment?

Sciatica treatment just like any treatment aimed to heal an injury takes time. It also requires the right care and dedication on your end. Make sure that when you see a specialist you make sure he or she takes into consideration your past injuries, current injuries, occupation, physical activity level, mental stress level, age, and more. As we’ve mentioned many times, one treatment does not fit all. For example, some people take Tylenol to relieve their headaches while for others it makes the headache worse.

Whether you choose to treat your pain using medication, physiotherapy, hydrotherapy, etc. make sure you try everything that makes sense for you. You owe it to yourself to live as pain free as possible. And besides, you’re not getting another body in this lifetime so you may as well treat the one you have with care.