In my fantasy country, we spend our tax dollars teaching people how to take care of themselves and supporting optimum health. In this fantasy, I imagine elementary school gym teachers showing a series of yoga poses to fifth graders. Since 80% of people will experience lower back pain over their lifetimes, having a series of poses in place to help straighten out your own spine makes a lot of sense. Not to mention all the sore shoulders, knees, necks and feet that people suffer from! It would also save my patients the time and money of expensive therapies, and also save considerable health care dollars, if patients just knew how to do these things for themselves.
My fantasy also subsidizes small vegetable farmers instead of industrial corn producers, but that’s another blog.
Yoga Cures: Simple Routines to Conquer More Than 50 Common Ailments and Live Pain-Free, by famed yogi Tara Stiles, is just the book I’ve been looking for. Tara shows simple poses that control and cure all kinds of musculoskeletal complaints. She empowers the reader to heal themselves by using poses in series for a bad shoulder, a sore hip, or a tight back. I healed my own back with yoga after two years of attempts at various therapeutic modalities, and I can testify that these ancient routines really do work. Pick it up and get ready to get more flexible. And who know? Maybe you will find the answer you’ve been looking for to cure that nagging pain.