Healing Back Pain Naturally: The Mind-body Program Proven to Work

Back pain is the nation's second most common ailment, affecting 7 out of 10 people and costing $100 billion annually. In fact, back pain is responsible for more days missed from work than any other ailment.

How to improve back health through exercise, yoga-based stretches, and stress reductiona reasonable plan. Brownstein (a clinical instructor of medicine at the University of Hawaii, Manoa) suffered multiple injuries and severe back pain for 20 years; when traditional medicines and surgery failed to help, he found relief by creating a regimen drawing on yoga, meditation, and other alternative therapies. His program is sound, and his starting point valuablerather than looking for an initiating catastrophic injury as the basis for designing treatment, chronic back pain sufferers would do better to understand their acute event as the culmination of years of stress, poor body mechanics, and possible weight and nutrition problems. His second important point is that almost all back pain originates in the muscles (rather than bone or other structures). This program is aimed, therefore at muscular fitness, principally with the extensive, progressive stretches based on yoga poses. Brownstein is careful to give appropriate cautions along the way: when to seek medical help, possible signs of serious disease. Nutritional advice, stress- reduction exercises, advice on lifestyle changes, and ``Emotional and Spiritual Lessons for Healing'' round out the program. Reliable advice for a common problem, with a spiritual/yoga flavor that will have special appeal for some sufferers. ($70,000 ad/promo; author tour) -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

After abusing his back for years, Brownstein, a practicing physician, turned to conventional medicine for relief. Surgery did not reduce the pain and led to an ongoing use of strong painkillers. Frustrated, Brownstein embarked on his own self-healing journey. The knowledge he acquired from yoga, meditation, diet, relaxation, and deep breathing was channeled into a program he calls Back To Life. Unlike the quick fixes offered by conventional medicine, Brownstein's program works holistically and requires changing unhealthy life patterns. He introduces the reader to a stretching program and strengthening exercises (demonstrated in black-and-white photos), then covers stress management, nutrition, return to work, and the psycho-spiritual elements of recovery. This is a readable book, less blunt than John Sarno's groundbreaking Healing Back Pain: The Mind-Body Connection (Warner, 1991). Back pain sufferers disappointed by conventional approaches will want this. Recommended for consumer health collections.ALisa McCormick, Health Sciences Lib., Jewish Hosp., Cincinnati
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.