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Summary Weekly yoga classes eased pain and improved functioning with chronic lower back pain.
Researchers found that participants in both types of classes had better functioning and fewer symptoms after three months than back patients who were only given a book with advice on preventing and managing pain.Weve known for a while... that exercise is good for back pain, said Dr Timothy Carey, from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, who wrote a commentary published with the study. Yoga, he said, seems to be a perfectly good option for people with back pain, but it is not a preferred option.Finding that yoga and stretching had about equal effects means it was probably the stretching involved in yoga and not the relaxation or breathing components of the practice that helped improve functioning and pain symptoms, researchers report today in Archives of Internal Medicine.
