Yoga for Sciatica

Namaste, welcome to Yoga & You, where we bring you yoga from its source, India, to your doorstep, wherever you are in the world. I am Rasika Sampath, and today we are going to be practicing yoga for sciatica. Now, sciatica refers to the shooting pain that we experience in the sciatic nerve, which basically runs from the lower back, down your hips, down your glutes, all the way down either one leg or both legs sometimes. This is characterized by the sharp shooting pain when you make jerky movements, when you make fast movements, or when you are sitting and you suddenly get up — pain that kind of worsens with long hours of sitting. Sometimes it could be characterized by numbness or weakness in one particular leg, or a tingling sensation.

Now, the causes for sciatica could be plenty — it could be because of a tight piriformis, it could be because of a disc bulge or a herniated disc, it could be because of poor posture, maybe a profession that makes you sit for a long time. So long hours of sitting also triggers sciatica, so the causes could be many, many things. This particular practice hits home for me because I have been suffering from sciatica myself for many years now, so it is specifically dominant on my left side — it has affected my practice quite a bit in terms of flexibility on the left side particularly. So today's practice is something that I — many of these postures are things that I practice myself personally to help me manage the sciatic pain. I hope that it gives you the much needed relief as well.

Few things that you should avoid when you have the sciatic pain: very deep forward folds with a rounded spine, and you should avoid very deep twists, especially seated twists — these could trigger sciatic pain. You can avoid doing too many deep asymmetrical postures, as that could also kind of trigger it sometimes, or very deep hamstring stretches, very intense hamstring stretches with a straight leg — all these are catalysts for your sciatic pain, so try and avoid these in your practice. So in today's practice you will need a block or a couple of blocks, and you'll also need the support of a wall in a couple of postures, so make sure you have that around, and I'll see you on the mat.

We'll start our practice in my favorite, cat and cow stretches. Come into a tabletop position with your shoulders over your wrists, hips over your knees, and let's begin. Inhale, arch your back, tilt the tailbone upwards, lift the chin. Exhale, push the mat away, round your back. Continue this movement on your own, inhaling to arch, exhaling to round the back — we'll do about five of these at our own pace. This is a really, really great way to mobilize the spine without any compression to the lower back, and it also is really great to supply blood — the circulation improves around the nerve — so all in all a great way to begin your practice. We're going to do more rounds — inhale, arch, exhale, round, inhale, arch, exhale and round back. Inhale, come back to a neutral position.

Now from here we're going to take pelvic circles. This is again something that I find really, really relaxing, especially when the sciatica takes over. So you're going to just roll forward in circles — you're going to move in clockwise circles. There is no right or wrong way to move here — you're going to just articulate the spine in any way that feels good for you. So you can continue this cat and cow-like movement as you take those circles, or you can just keep going back and front just with the pelvis — I'll leave it up to you, focus on what feels good for you today, moving the hips around in circles. So imagine you're drawing a circle, a clockwise circle, with your hips. You may switch directions — we'll do about five circles in each direction.

Alright, come back to center, slowly sit back on your heels and come into child's pose. So stretch your hands forward, bring your forehead down, relax here for a moment. Again, child's pose is a very relaxing pose — it really helps you relieve that pain, find relief in that sciatica pain.

From here we'll take a little side stretch — again, a very nice, gentle way to decompress and stretch the lower back. So from here, inhale, just lift your head up, and exhale, walk your hands over to the right — only the hands move, okay, your hips don't move — and from here fold over your right leg. Feel the stretch in the left side body, especially around the lower waist and the lower back on the left side, and feel the compression on the right side aiding that stretch. Stay, inhale, come back to center, shift to the left, walk your hands to the left, find that length through the right side body, and exhale to fold over your left leg, aiding that stretch in the right side all the way from the lower waist to your fingertips. Good, slowly come back to center, inhale, exhale one last time, bring your forehead down, from here inhale to slowly come up to seated, sit in Vajrasana. Notice how that felt in your body, and now, when you're ready, let's lie down — come on to your back, lie down on your back.

Now from here we're going to take a few pelvic tilts — again, it's a very great way to find a lot of relief in the lower back as well as bring some core awareness. So you're going to bend your knees like so, bringing the feet onto the mat — you can place your hands on your hips so you actually feel the movement better. We're going to move from a tuck to a tilt alternatively, okay, so let's go. So first you're going to get into a tilt, so you're going to arch the back — move the lower back away from the mat — you're going to feel the lower back moving upwards, arching the back, this is a pelvic tilt. Then from here you're going to tuck the tailbone, so press the lower back into the mat — this is your pelvic tuck, okay, so we'll do this five times. Inhale, arch the back, lift the lower back up, exhale, press the lower back down, inhale, arch, lift the lower back up, keep the chin neutral, the neck neutral at all times, chin towards your chest, exhale, round — or rather, press the lower back into the mat — tuck, inhale, lower back up, tilt, exhale, tuck, one more time, inhale, tilt, exhale and tuck.

Okay, now come to a neutral position, and exhale, bring your knees to your chest, form a Pavanmuktasana, hug your knees, try to hold opposite elbows, and keep the thighs close to your chest. Stay here — this is a lovely way, again, to release the lower back area and to also get into the parasympathetic nervous system, so it's a great way to relax, and relaxation is the best way to manage any sort of nerve-related pain — stress aggravates any nervous issues. Stay, breathe, one more breath, exhale, gently release your legs, bring your feet back onto the mat, but take it out wide, so you want your feet to be as wide as the mat. Okay, now from here you can take your hands out wide into a T, and we're just going to go into a windshield wiper with the knees — take your knees to the right, gaze to the left, knees to the left, gaze to the right, so you're giving yourself a gentle twist — feels really good. Knees to the right, gaze to the left, knees to the left, gaze to the right — we'll do five of this. Knees to the right, gaze to the left, knees to the left, gaze to the right — two, knees to the right, knees to the left — three, knees to the right, knees to the left — four, last one, knees to the right, knees to the left, knees to the right. Now slowly let's come up.

Now for the next couple of postures you'll need blocks — if you have yoga blocks with you, please use them, otherwise you can use anything that is stable and supportive like a block. First one we're going to come into is Anjaneyasana. This is a lovely posture for so many different things — it's an excellent posture to practice on a daily basis, so multiple benefits for Anjaneyasana. I do it in almost every class of mine, you will notice I have Anjaneyasana. For your sciatic pain as well this is really beneficial, I'll explain why.

Bring your right leg forward, your left leg will be behind, your knee will be down — you can cushion your knee by either rolling up the mat, or using a blanket or any pad, anything to kind of protect the knee. Now push the hips forward — your hips will move towards your right heel as much as possible, but you will not arch your lower back like this, you will keep the awareness on the navel, draw the navel in towards your spine. Straighten your spine as much as you can, your hands will be in a suitcase position, as though you're holding two suitcases — so keep reaching down with your fingertips, trying to reach the ground with your fingertips. Now if you do not have that flexibility you might need a block — you can use blocks on both sides and place your hands on the blocks for a little additional support. This posture is great because it stretches out the hip flexor of the back leg, which reduces the pelvic pull on the sciatic nerve — really great to enhance flexibility in the hip flexors. Stay and breathe — 5, 4, keep pressing down through the top of the back foot — 2, 1.

Now from here we'll get into Ardha Hanumanasana, which is half splits, so you're going to straighten that right leg and lift the toes up so you'll be on your heel — flex the right toes to look at you. Move the left knee such that the knee is directly below the hip, check for all these alignments — don't be in a hurry to get into the posture. You can bring those two blocks, place them maybe even at the medium height or the tallest height even — your blocks will be beside your shins. From here we're not going to fold forward, we're going to maintain a lengthy spine — this is a very nice and safe way to stretch out the hamstrings. Place your hands on the blocks and inhale to find length, so get into that little bit of an anterior tilt with your pelvis, reach forward with your chin — it's like you're trying to bring your chin towards your toes but without folding down. Stay here and breathe — 1, 2, engage the quad, slowly contract the quadriceps, that will help protect the hamstrings — 3, 4, 5. Excellent, slowly bend the right knee and then take your right knee back.

Let's switch sides — bring your left leg forward and let's get into an Anjaneyasana position, so keep bringing the hips forward, forward, forward, straighten the spine — you want to avoid resting the belly over the thigh, feel for consciously moving the belly away from the thigh, so the spine lengthens. At the same time, pay awareness to what your lower back is doing — if it's arching and your ribcage is popping out, you want to draw that navel in, bring your awareness to the navel, Uddiyana, hands to the block if you did it on the other side, and stay — 1, 2, you will feel a stretch in the hip flexor on the right leg, so if you're feeling it there, it means you're doing it right — 4, 5. Slowly lean forward a little and then begin to straighten the left leg, lift your toes up to point towards you. So for those of you suffering from sciatica, depending on the degree of your pain, it could be a lot to straighten the knee, in which case you can always keep a micro bend in the knee — don't be forced to straighten the knee, it's not required, and anytime you feel pain, back off — that is a general rule in your yoga practice, whenever you feel pain, back off, pain is not the goal at all.

Alright, bring your blocks by the side of your shins, inhale and find that length, contract the thigh — you will really notice, I have my sciatica pain on this leg, so when I straighten this without engagement of the thigh, immediately there is a pull in the nerve behind, so if you're facing that as well, immediately contract the thigh and see the difference. Stay — 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, slowly bend the left knee, take your left leg back, sit down on Vajrasana for a moment, notice how that feels. Vajrasana is a great place to return to after every posture, because it really helps kind of soothe the back of your legs a little bit.

Alright, now from here we're going to come into a reverse table top — you can move the blocks away, so you can keep it up to the side, and sit with your legs extended forward, your feet can be about hips-width apart, hands will be behind you, one forearm distance behind you with the fingers pointing forward. From here, inhale and lift the hips up and come into a reverse table top position, try to squeeze the glutes and lift the hips up as high as you can — if your neck feels comfortable you can look back. See — 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, slowly bring your hips down.

Okay, now let's come into Gomukhasana legs, so you're going to stack your right knee over the left — this again gives a lot of relief for people with that shooting pain, it can just pull it all in together. So bring the right knee and stack it over your left knee — even if this is not happening and you're somewhere here, it's okay, what's important is to feel for that squeezing action, squeeze the thighs together, feet beside you, and you can just stay here upright. Now for those of you who are regular practitioners, if you want to take the full Gomukhasana, you can take your right hand up, left hand from below, and bind, but that's not the objective of our practice today — today is basically to focus on sciatic pain, so I'm going to stick with just the lower body. Stay and breathe — 4, 3, 2, 1, gently release, switch sides, left knee over the right, feel for that squeezing. Sometimes when you pull too much in this posture you may also feel some kind of radiating pain around the side of your glutes — if that's the case, back off a little, take the knee away a little, play around, see what feels good for you — you can even use a prop or cushion or something under your butt. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, slowly release.

Now grab a block again and lie down, so you're going to lie down on your back — we're going to come into Setu Bandhasana, but we'll do it supported. So feet on the mat about hips-width apart, inhale, lift the hips up, and use the medium height and slide the block horizontally across your sacrum, so you should not feel any kind of pressure — if the block is under your butt you will feel a lot of pressure on the glute, or if it's on the lower back you'll feel a lot of pressure on the lower back, there'll be some unnatural arching happening, so it should be in between — make sure you get the sacrum position right, it's the flat part of the back. Stay here — this gently releases any tension, any stiffness and tightness around the lumbar spine, a very, very lovely, gentle way to release, you can practice this on a daily basis. Keeping the block as a support really helps — that additional pressure from your block further allows the loosening and the opening of the lumbar region, any tightness over there, any soreness there, gets released because of this. Breathe — you may actually stay here for as long as you know you can, you can stay here for say up to five minutes, but for the sake of today's practice we'll take two more breaths here. Gently push down into your heels, lift the hips up, slide the block away from you, drop your hips down slowly.

Now bring your knees towards your chest, open your arms out wide, and we'll take it into a twist — so you're going to take both your knees over to the right, gaze over your left shoulder. Now for those of you who are not able to bring the legs all the way down, no problem, you have that block, you can always use it under your legs — it feels really great. Today's practice is about feeling supported and feeling safe in your practice, so make sure that you use whatever props you have — there is no shame in using props, so we're not trying to push ourselves, we're trying to use our practice to serve us, and the issue at hand right now is the sciatic pain, so focus on relieving that. Two, one, come back to center, and exhale to take your knees to the left, gaze over your right shoulder — a great way to deal with any kind of nervous pain, including sciatic, is to practice more restorative postures, is to take the support of props whenever you can in your practice — the more you relieve stress through your practice, the more calm your practice is, the safer your nervous system feels. Slowly come back to center, release your legs.

And now you can slowly come up and take yourself to the wall — the last few postures we practice against the wall. Take yourself to a wall and scoot your hips not all the way to the wall, but a little bit away from the wall, lie down, and bring your feet onto the wall in a 90-degree position, keep the lower back pressing down — at no point should you arch your lower back like that, which is why we did that pelvic awareness in the beginning of the practice, so make sure that arch does not happen here, you're tucking the lower back under. So now you're going to come into a figure of four position — cross your right ankle over the left knee, from here you're just going to use the right palm to gently — don't be very forceful, very gently — push the right knee away from you, this targets the piriformis muscle, which is a big trigger for sciatic pain, so this opens up that muscle, focus on any sensations that you're feeling around the right glute, around that side hip area.

Gently release your hand, thread the needle — so interlock your fingers behind your left thigh, so you want to take the right hand from inside your legs and the left hand from outside, hold behind the left thigh, and pull the left knee in close to your chest. If this feels okay, you're going to take that right elbow — so from the same position, the right elbow will be used to push the right knee away from you, so you'll really feel this in your outer hips and the glutes, so this helps to open and release into those areas — a lot of back pain finds a lot of relief from this posture. Alright, bring the left foot back onto the wall, right foot back onto the wall, switch sides, cross the left ankle over the right knee, flex the left foot, the bent leg foot. Now first, initially just bring your left palm to your left knee and push the left knee away, stay with the sensation, breathe into it, good, and now thread the needle, hold behind your right thigh and pull the right knee in close to your chest, use the left elbow to push the left knee away, stay and breathe, good. Gently release the right foot back onto the wall, left foot back onto the wall.

Now you can scoot yourself close to the wall — so either do it like this, or you can sit up, get yourself really close to the wall, and lie down again — we're going to end our practice with this legs-up-the-wall position, so make sure you go close enough to the wall that your sitting bones are touching the wall — that feels really, really supportive. If you have a bolster or a pillow handy, you can also slide that under your hips — that's again a great way to restore, a great way to relax in this posture. So you will stay here in this legs-up-the-wall posture, you can bring one hand to your heart, one hand to your belly, and focus on your breath, focus on longer exhalations, and it really helps to calm the nervous system down — you move from the fight-or-flight mode, that is the sympathetic nervous system, to the rest-and-digest mode, which is the parasympathetic nervous system, and always, when you move to the parasympathetic nervous system, any of these nerve-related pains find release. So you can stay here for as long as it serves you — healing sciatica is about patience, softness and consistency, so it is a long journey, but stay consistent with it. When you stop forcing the body, the nervous system feels safe and pain begins to release. I hope you found some release through today's practice — practice this consistently and you will definitely see a little bit of difference.