Okay, so my periods have got much less painful as I've got older anyway, but when I was getting very bad cramps, the most useful one for me was cobra pose:
Try to put the focus on getting a stretch of the front of your body rather than the back-bend aspect, if that makes any sense.
I think it just gives the muscles something else to think about rather than all locking up in death-cramp sympathy round your uterus. If you can convince them to unlock a bit (because they don't actually need to be contracting just because your uterus is): less pain.
If you counter-balance it with a forward bend like child's pose, that's good anyway but can also help with lower back ache (as can cat-cow).
Also, hip openers and quadriceps stretches -- I tend to get a lot of referred pain there, so that can help with the deep draggy aches. They tend to work well if you hold them for longer periods, so can work well with a very slowed-down, meditative approach:
Lots and lots of poses fall into this category, so these are just a few examples:
Video class -- I haven't done this in a while, remember the teaching style as being a bit twee and it may have more about "moving your prana down" than works for you, but the sequence is really good:
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All YMMV
Date: 2017-08-22 09:27 am (UTC)http://www.yogabasics.com/asana/cobra/ (links are grabbed from whatever Google will provide me with as illustrations)
Try to put the focus on getting a stretch of the front of your body rather than the back-bend aspect, if that makes any sense.
I think it just gives the muscles something else to think about rather than all locking up in death-cramp sympathy round your uterus. If you can convince them to unlock a bit (because they don't actually need to be contracting just because your uterus is): less pain.
If you counter-balance it with a forward bend like child's pose, that's good anyway but can also help with lower back ache (as can cat-cow).
Twists can also be good:
https://www.yogajournal.com/poses/half-lord-of-the-fishes-pose
Also, hip openers and quadriceps stretches -- I tend to get a lot of referred pain there, so that can help with the deep draggy aches. They tend to work well if you hold them for longer periods, so can work well with a very slowed-down, meditative approach:
Lots and lots of poses fall into this category, so these are just a few examples:
https://www.yogajournal.com/poses/bound-angle-pose
https://www.yogajournal.com/poses/wide-angle-seated-forward-bend
https://organicallywealthy.wordpress.com/2015/01/28/what-is-yin-yoga-and-why-practice-it/ (saddle pose)
Video class -- I haven't done this in a while, remember the teaching style as being a bit twee and it may have more about "moving your prana down" than works for you, but the sequence is really good:
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x16lbu9