Having Joint Pain? Check This Out.
For many of us, the winter is when our chronic joint pain increases.
Lower back pain is a common ailment many of us suffer from. With all of our sitting, our low back muscles of the quadratus lumborum, psoas and glutes become very weak.
I was debilitated by severe lower back pain for over ten years, and not until I strengthened these muscles in my lower back did I find relief.
I thought I just needed to stretch those muscles, but more often than not, these muscles need to be strengthened to support the weight of the joints.
One of the best poses to strengthen the lower back and open the heart while stimulating the fire element (of the heart and small intestine meridians) and the water element (of the kidney and bladder meridians) is dhanurasana, bow pose.
This pose is also one of the safest back bends for our lower back. While strengthening the lower back, we can breathe through the meridians to focus the mind and relieve anxiety!
We sit a lot in the winter, which makes our muscles atrophy and become too weak to support our joints. If we don’t strengthen the muscles around the joints, the weight of the bones and extra body weight is too much to be supported by weak muscles and, therefore, creates pain.
Did you know that the wintertime is the easiest time to repair joint pain?
According to traditional Chinese medicine, the bones are connected to water element.
Each season corresponds to a different element. In the winter, the water element’s energy is running the strongest. The bones and joints are part of the Jing expression or physical attributes of the water element. Therefore, it’s the best time to repair bones and joint pain when the energy is in high tide.
The Jing, Chi, and Shen are the holy trinities of Chinese medicine that we observe each season and work within the Meridian Flow practice.
The Jing is the physical expression of each element. During the winter water element, the Jing corresponds to the physical body parts of the kidneys, bladder, bones, brain, and endocrine system, as well as the ears, which are the sense doors to the kidneys.
They all have a similar energetic quality, vibration, and frequency to water. If we have issues in any of these areas, the winter time is the easiest time to repair the energetic maladaptations, which can be brought into balance.
Stimulating these meridians in specific poses and strengthening our joints is a win-win!
And if you’ve come to my classes, you know I love to add the Joint Freeing Series from Structural Yoga Therapy by Mukunda Stiles into our practice, which creates mobility in the joints and stimulates the meridians that run through them. This practice balances us on our Jing, Chi, and Shen levels.
We are ultimately responsible for our own healing and the Meridian Flow pracitce brings us into homeostasis, where we can thrive naturally!
You can read more about the seasonal practices, meditations and breathwork in my recent book The Empowered Yogi, Transcending the Chronic Pain and Anxiety Associated with Autoimmune Conditions.
Hope to see you in class soon!
Blessings,
Maggie