Yoga post surgery refers to the practice of yoga after a surgical procedure to aid in recovery and promote healing. After surgery, yoga can help improve flexibility, range of motion, and circulation, and reduce stress and tension by improving flexibility, range of motion, and circulation.
We often get clients referred by cardiologists to help with the stress management benefits of yoga, research has found that the risk of cardiac arrests increases greatly when the patient suffers from chronic stress, anxiety, and panic attacks. Working with clients one on one helps to bring a greater mental balance and inner calm through gentle movement, assisted stretching to release built-up tension, and calming breathing techniques and meditation to relax the mind and bring the brainwaves to an alpha state. It helps heart patients in improving cardiovascular health, what about post-op recovery?
With orthopaedic surgery personalized yoga classes speed up the rehabilitation process. With a trained eye in symmetrical movement and experts in anatomy, our team ensures that the joint tracks correctly and that the correct muscles are engaged. Very often we experience muscular skeletal pain due to poor posture and muscles compensating for stiffness, for example, a forward stooping upper back limits the movement of the diaphragm in breathing causing the breath to be short and shallow, this lowers energy levels and bringing tension around the neck and shoulders.
Yoga Post Surgery
Furthermore, the forward stoop disengages the core belt, which means the abdominal muscles protecting the lower back go offline and the lower lumbar becomes vulnerable to weight bearing the load of the torso, this often leads to bulging disks around L4 and L5 where spinal fusion results. Our back care program increases the strength around the core belt, opens the chest and shoulders, corrects the rounding posture and reprograms the breathing patters to ensure that the spine regains its flexibility while being protected by the strength of muscles so that the weight isn’t borne by the spinal discs.
In instances of surgery from contact injury, for example through sports or from an accident post surgery yoga helps in the recovery to strengthen around the joint, bring a greater range of motion and lower the impact of scar tissue. Our systematic approach of slowly adding weight bearing poses and the use of props and variations ensures the yoga practice is tailored to the exact intensity the body can manage, this enhances confidence and brings more trust in the patient’s physical capabilities. After an unexpected injury we have seen the biggest barrier to a full recovery is fear, the patient is worried about putting weight on the injured area again in fear that another injury would ensue and because of this they create compensations which further limits their movement compared to before the incident.
For example, a client injured his ACL of his left knee playing sport which required an operation, after which he never felt he could move in the same way. When we examined his gait we saw he was psychologically worried about straining his left knee again and compensated by putting more weight on his right knee, this caused a slight tilt in his hips and his left lower back to felt tense holding onto the asymmetrical posture. Once we worked with his left side methodically to increase his weight bearing poses he could trust the strength he built around his left quad, glute and hamstring to know that his left knee would be protected, as he gained in his trust to put even weight on his left and right leg we realigned his hips and help to release the tension around his back from the stiffness of the unnatural compensation when he was limping on the right leg.
Perhaps the fundamental aspect yoga supports for post operation recovery is training high quality rest. When the body and mind is at ease, sleep quality is maximized which heightens the body’s ability to repair and restore after surgery. The calming aspect of yoga supports deeper relaxation and the deep stretching releases the tension and tightness calcified in the muscles from years of built up stress and scar tissue.
Letting go of tension and bringing a fluidity to movements help with proprioception where you are more spatially aware of your body, this improves one’s ability to balance especially if the surface in uneven or slippery. When the body and mind are calm healing is accelerated predominantly due to the absence of stress, in sleep cells multiply and aid in sending signals to muscles, tissues and bones for faster repair and rejuvenation.
Want to Join Yoga Post Surgery Classes at Home? you can visit Inspire Yoga in Hong Kong
