Potential Role of Yoga Intervention in the Management of Chronic Non-malignant Pain

Abstract

Pain is an unpleasant and upsetting experience. Persistent pain has an impact on an individual’s quality of life which causes stress and mood disorders. There are currently no pain-relieving techniques available that can eliminate pain and offer relief without causing any adverse effects. These factors draw attention to traditional treatments like yoga and meditation, which can reduce biological stress and hence increase immunity, as well as alleviate the psychological and emotional suffering produced by pain. Yoga reduces the stress response and the pain cascade via the downregulation of the hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis and vagal stimulation. Yoga is a cost-effective growing health practice that, unlike pharmaceuticals, has no side effects and can help patients stay in remission for longer periods of time with fewer relapses. Yoga not only reduces stress and depression severity but also improves functional status and reduces pain perception. This article highlights the impact of yoga on pain management and on a malfunctioning immune system, which leads to improved health, pain reduction, disease management, and improvement in overall quality of life.

Pain‐focused psychological interventions in women with endometriosis: A systematic review

“…Practicing yoga on a regular basis could thus elevate the levels of GABA, which could facilitate the inhibitory action on the transmission of pain signaling. Yoga could further reduce the stress response with much focus on breathing techniques, meditation, and pain cascade by the downregulation of the hypothalamus‐pituitary–adrenal (HPA) axis and vague nerve stimulation (VNS) 6,13,34 …”

“…6,13,34 Another intervention affecting pain in women with EMS was psychoeducation. In this regard,Meissner et al (2016), exploring the effect of psychoeducation via somatosensory stimulation on pain in EMS patients reported that it had significantly reduced pain, especially after 3 months (p = 0.002) 11.…”

HLA-G 3’UTR polymorphisms & response to a yoga-based lifestyle intervention in rheumatoid arthritis: A randomized controlled trial

“…Yoga overall increases muscular strength, range of motion, flexibility and improves balance and co-ordination 8 9 . It reduces anxiety, depression, chronic pain and promotes wellness, hence improves the quality of life 8 9 25 26 27 28 . No significant association was found between change in the sHLA-G levels and disease activity post-intervention based on genotypes in either of the groups ( Fig.…”

Yoga and pain: A mind-body complex system

“…In contrast to other information-based organs such as the eyes, ears, etc., the sense of pain serves as a deterrent in order to prevent more pain, avoid dangerous situations, and provide diagnostic information about which unseen part of the body (under the skin) might be the cause of pain (1). There are no pain nerves as such, just signals that the brain determines should be tagged as painful (2,3). Pain is termed nociceptive, the sensory receptors that detect signals from damaged tissues are called nociceptors, and the central nervous system's process of interpreting pain signals is called nociception.…”

“…Yoga is known through multiple studies to downregulate sympathetic nervous system hyper-arousal through the HPA axis, increase parasympathetic activation through the vagal nerve complex, and reduce allostatic load to help stabilize the autonomic nervous system (46). Improvement of vagal tone is closely linked to yoga and helps control the inflammatory response of the adrenergic reactions to chronic anxiety, providing potential mitigation of the detrimental feedback loop of stress and pain (2,48). Practice of yoga also leads to a decrease in pain perception through cognitive disengagement, leading to a decrease in the affective aspect of pain sensitivity and increasing interoception (46).…”