Facing life with back pain?

Have tried all the remedies, only to have your back pain return?

Don't worry, you are not alone and anyway, worrying will just make it worse: truth is, you may be lost in the Back Pain Triangle.

Over 80% of adults suffer from back pain at some stage. Almost 90% will suffer from recurring bouts of back pain. Eventually these same people will have their older years in chronic back pain misery.

It sounds frightening but rest assured: your back pain is easily solved, with the Back Support Pyramid.

It is not a product, a system or package. The Back Support Pyramid is a three-sided understanding of how back pain arises, from three separate areas, and then interweaving the solutions for all three.

Ready to hear all three sides of the Back Support Pyramid?

SIDE 1: Structural Support for Your Back

The structural causes of back pain are tight muscles, weak muscles and joint imbalance. If you correct these, you correct structural causes of back pain.

Alas, cures are not structural alone. Your back pain will most likely come back (!)  if you don't also solve the other two sides of this three-sided Back Support equation.

By the way - recent research has shown that the trauma caused by lifting an object, or doing a normal daily activity (the most common excuse for back pain), is not sufficient to create back pain.

This means the physical trauma that you thought caused your back pain ... didn't! It came from a buildup of tension, from physical causes and from the other two sides to the back pain triangle.

SIDE 2: Look To Your Health

Your general health affects your back. If you are tired, have bowel complaints (minor or major), hormonal imbalances, immune problems or are just generally not 100% healthy, back pain is more likely.

How does that work?

If you suffer from constipation, diarrhea, gas and wind, bloating, there is extra pressure on your lower back. This can set your lower back in a state of tension where when you lift, when you walk, even when you sit - so your back does not have the strength to support you. Then, seemingly suddenly, you pull your back after lifting an object you have lifted a hundred times before.

If you are tired, your muscles tire. That means emotional exhaustion as well as the tiredness of physical illness. Notice how when you have a flu/cold your muscles feel sore also. My lower back is excruciating when I have a fever.

Take care of your general health and your back will benefit.

SIDE 3: How are you Feeling Inside?

Your emotional health, not just the extremes of depression or anxiety, affect your back.

If you are stressed, anxious, worried or generally not at ease, then muscles tighten. The saying that "stress rides between your shoulders" is very accurate. Stress also takes up residence in your back.

When your mind is overactive, when you are not coping too well, muscles in your upper back tighten. Notice if someone squeezes your shoulders after a busy day, they can feel like rocks.

Notice also how good a long, hard hug feels. This emotional support can allow you to let go of those rocks in your back and melt.

Stress affects your muscles, and sometimes it is in deadly combination with one of the other areas affecting your back. If you are hunched over a desk, working on a project with a crushing deadline (notice the word deadline...it doesn't even sound good), you get a double whammy of stress and structural damage to your back. And you might even be more susceptible to that stomach flu going around the office.

So to remove back pain once and for all, you need to address the physical, general and emotional causes to your back pain.

One answer? You guessed it: yoga.

In many hot yoga poses, we tell you to "pull your shoulders down from your ears," or to lift from your breastbone and tip your elbows into imaginary back pocket. In savasana, we encourage you to melt into the floor, to allow the floor to rise up to meet your body, to let go of your tension and your worries if only for these short minutes in the yoga room. We give you permission to take a pose lying down, to imagine yourself in the pose as you breathe deeply - this is just as beneficial as doing the pose!

These are all wonderful practices for of letting go the tension that is causing your back to seize up.

And when you finally get up after final Savasana, the relaxation pose, take these lessons out of the yoga room and back into your life: your back can support you in the ways it was meant, to carry you through a pain-free life of living your full potential for health and happiness.

Hot Yoga is Funny!

Remember your first hot yoga class? This hilarious account of a newbie in hot yoga should give you something to laugh about next time you're having a hard time in hot yoga.

Yoga mat for sale. Used once at lunch hour hot yoga class as follows:

11:45 Register for hot yoga class. Infinite wisdom tells me to commit to 5 class package and purchase a yoga mat. I pay $89.74. Money well spent,I smugly confirm to myself.

11:55 Open door to yoga room. A gush of hot dry air rushes through and pastme. It smells of breath, sweat and hot. Take spot on floor in back of room next to cute blonde. We will date.

11:57 I feel the need to be as near to naked as possible. This is a problem because of the hot blonde to my left and our pending courtship. She will not be pleased to learn that I need to lose 30 pounds before I
propose to her.

11:58 The shirt and sweats have to come off. I throw caution to the wind and decide to rely on my wit and conditioning to overcome any weight issues my fiance may take issue with. This will take a lot of wit and conditioning.

11:59 Begin small talk with my bride to be. She pretends to ignore me but I know how she can be. I allow her to concentrate and stare straight ahead and continue to pretend that I don't exist. As we finish sharing our special moment, I am suddenly aware of a sweat moustache that has formed below my nose. This must be from the all the whispering between us.

12:00 Instructor enters the room and ascends her special podium at the front of the room. She is a slight, agitated Chinese woman. She introduces me to the class and everyone turns around to greet me just as I decide to aggressively adjust my penis and testes packed in my Under Armor. My bride is notably unfazed.

12:02 Since I do have experience with Hot Yoga (4 sessions just 5 short years ago) I fully consider that I may be so outstanding and skilled that my instructor may call me out and ask me to guide the class. My wife will look on with a sparkle in her eye. We will make love after class.

12:10 It is now up to 95 degrees in the room. We have been practicing deep breathing exercises for the last 8 minutes. This would not be a problem if we were all breathing actual, you know, oxygen. Instead, we
are breathing each other's body odor, expelled carbon dioxide and other unmentionables. (Don't worry, I'll mention them later.)

12:26 It is now 100 degrees and I take notice of the humidity, which is hovering at about 90%. I feel the familiar adoring stare of my bride and decide to look back at her. She appears to be nauseated. I then
realize that I forgot to brush my teeth prior to attending this class. We bond.

12:33 It is now 110 degrees and 95% humidity. I am now balancing on one leg with the other leg crossed over the other. My arms are intertwined and I am squatting. The last time I was in this position was 44 years ago in the womb, but I'm in this for the long haul. My wife looks slightly weathered dripping sweat and her eyeliner is streaming down her face. Well, "for better or worse" is what we committed to so we press on.

12:40 The overweight Hispanic man two spots over has sweat running down his legs. At least I think its sweat. He is holding every position and has not had a sip of water since we walked in. He is making me look bad and I hate him.

12:44 I consider that if anyone in this room farted that we would all certainly perish.

12:52 It is now 140 degrees and 100% humidity. I am covered from head to toe in sweat. There is not a square millimeter on my body that is not slippery and sweaty.

12:55 This room stinks of asparagus, cloves, tuna and tacos. There is no food in the room. I realize that this is an amalgamation of the body odors of 30 people in a 140 degree room for the last 55 minutes. Seriously, enough with the asparagus, ok?

1:01 140 degrees and 130% humidity. Look, bitch, I need my space here so don't get all pissy with me if I accidentally sprayed you with sweat as I flipped over. Seriously, is that where this relationship is going? Get over yourself. We need counseling and she needs to be medicated. Stat!

1:09 150 degrees and cloudy. And hot. I can no longer move my limbs on my own. I have given up on attempting any of the commands this Chinese chick is yelling out at us. I will lay sedentary until the aid unit arrives. I will buy this building and then have it destroyed. I lose consciousness.

1:15 I have a headache and my wife is being a selfish bitch. I can't really breathe. All I can think about is holding a cup worth of hot sand in my mouth. I cannot remember what an ice cube is and cannot remember what snow looks like. I consider that my only escape might be a crab walk across 15 bodies and then out of the room. I am paralyzed, and may never walk again so the whole crab walk thing is pretty much out.

1:17: I cannot move at all and cannot reach my water. Is breathing voluntary or involuntary? If it's voluntary, I am screwed. I stopped participating in the class 20 minutes ago. Hey, lady! I paid for this frickin class, ok?! You work for me! Stop yelling at everyone and just tell us a story or something. It's like juice and cracker time, ok?

1:20 It is now 165 degrees and moisture is dripping from the ceiling. The towel that I am laying on is no longer providing any wicking or drying. It is actually placing additional sweat on me as I touch it. My towel reeks. I cannot identify the smell but no way can it be from me. Did someone spray some stank on my towel or something?

1:30: Torture session is over. I wish hateful things upon the instructor. She graciously allows us to stay and 'cool down' in the room. It is 175 degrees. Who cools down in 175 degrees? A Komodo Dragon? My wife
has left the room. Probably to throw up.

1:34: My opportunity to escape has arrived. I roll over to my stomach and press up to my knees. It is warmer as I rise up from ground level - probably by 15 degrees. So let's conservatively say it's 190. I muster
my final energy and slowly rise. One foot in front of the other. One foot in front of the other. Towards the door. Towards the door.

1:37: The temperature in the lobby is 72 degrees. Both nipples stiffen to diamond strength and my penis begins to retract into my abdomen from the 100 degree temp swing. I can once again breathe though so I am pleased. I spot my future ex wife in the lobby. We had such a good thing going but I know that no measure of counseling will be able to unravel the day's turmoil and mental scaring.

1:47 Arrive at Emerald City Smoothie and proceed to order a 32 oz beverage. 402 calories, 0 fat and 14 grams of protein -- effectively negating any caloric burn or benefit from the last 90 minutes. I finish it in 3
minutes and spend the next 2 hours writing this memoir.

3:47 Create Craigslist ad while burning final 2 grams of protein from Smoothie and before the "shakes" consume my body.

4:29 Note to self - check car for missing wet yoga towel in am.

The yoga of owning it

I heard a successful entrepreneur speak recently about "Owning" everything in your life. I love that and apply it to own up to that at Riverflow Yoga.

When you walk into Riverflow Yoga, a teacher greets you. Let your To Do List go undone. Take your hair down and unwind. Get into the hot yoga room and get out of your daily grind.

If you have questions or concerns, come to us. We are here to teach you, yes, and to listen and hear your issues about hot yoga (and sometimes about other things). When you are here at Riverflow Yoga, you are our responsibility.

Your Riverflow yoga teacher takes charge so that you can relax. In hot yoga, we guide you step by step through each pose Even if that means we must lovingly but firmly keep you on track, following the pose instructions when you may want to do something else. Or give up.  We will comment and compliment your poses, your effort, just your showing up...because you deserve our full attention.

If you ask us about something we don't know, we won't fudge an answer; we will tell you honestly, "I don't know. I'll find out and get back to you." And your teacher will find out for you. You can trust that our answers are for real.

If you have a "bad back" or "weak knees," your Riverflow teacher will make sure you have a good hot yoga class around it. If we don't know how to best accommodate you, we'll tell you to take the pose gently or take the pose off. When you come back for your next class, that teacher will have an answer for your issues, guide you into your next phase.

Owning is a way of caring 110%, as we like to say in hot yoga. We choose to be lovingly responsible for all the students in our care. And we care enough to make each of you a part of our personal yoga business.