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Nearly 90% of American adults experience some sort of back pain. Why is this number so high when in other countries only 5% of adults report back pain? Esther Gokhale (pronounced Go-clay) has been on a quest to find out the answer to this very question due to her own failed back surgery. She has been teaching what is called the Gokhale Method (SM) for 15 years at her wellness center in Palo Alto and has now written a book called 8 Steps to a Pain-Free Back.
Her book is a comprehensive, step by step guide to better posture and better health. It contains testimony after testimony from people who have used the Gokhale Method (SM) and have seen a positive change occur after using these eight steps to change the way they sit, walk, exercise and generally go about their daily lives.
Esther first takes the reader through the foundations of back pain and what good posture actually looks like. For this she provides photograph after photograph of people around the world who exhibit fine posture while doing every day activities, unlike most of us here in the United States who have lost the ability to do these things while maintaining good posture.
Then she goes through the orientation of how to use the lessons and how they are organized. She does not claim this is a cure all and definitely states precautions, but overall the whole Gokhale Method (SM) was intriguing enough for me to take advantage of the opportunity to review 8 Steps to a Pain-Free Back, since my husband has struggled with back pain ever since he was rear ended in a fender bender in the late 1990s.
Each of the lessons is thoroughly explained, complete with photos of each step, including photos of the wrong way to do the exercises as well. I really think that this book could help people looking for an alternative way to relieve their back pain when surgery and traditional medicine has failed them.
8 Steps to a Pain-Free Back> is available through www.egwellness.com, as well as many other book retailers for $24.95.
About Esther Gokhale
Esther has been involved in integrative therapies all her life. As a young girl growing up in India, she helped her mother, a registered nurse, treat abandoned babies waiting to be adopted. This early interest led her to study biochemistry at Harvard and Princeton and, later, acupuncture at the San Francisco School of Oriental Medicine. After crippling back pain during her first pregnancy and unsuccessful back surgery, she began her lifelong crusade to find a solution to back pain. Her studies at the Aplomb Institute in Paris and years of research in Burkina Faso, India, Portugal, and elsewhere led to her development of the Gokhale Method (SM), which she has been teaching at her Palo Alto wellness center for the past fifteen years. Visit her online at www.egwellness.com
