If you suffer from chronic neck pain, a small new German study announced Tuesday finds that one particular style of yoga may offer some relief.

Researchers at Charit-University Medical Center in Berlin assigned 25 patients suffering from chronic neck pain to a nine-week Iyengar yoga training program, with participants taking a weekly 90-minute class.

Iyengar yoga, developed by B.K.S. Iyengar, is a form of hatha yoga that emphasizes detail and precision and often relies on the use of props to help students achieve mastery of the postures.

For the control group, 28 patients were assigned to exercise classes offering self-care techniques.

At weeks four and ten, subjects completed a questionnaire about their symptoms, with findings showing "a significant and clinically important reduction in pain intensity in the yoga group," the scientists wrote. The rationale? That yoga enhanced both the toning of muscles and the release of muscle tension. The findings were published in The Journal of Pain.

The study follows another that found that people who took yoga classes for chronic lower back pain experienced more lifestyle improvements and better overall health than those who sought a doctor's advice. Published in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine, the study included more than 300 subjects.

Access the study: http://www.jpain.org/article/S1526-5900%2812%2900779-1/abstract

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Yoga may soothe chronic neck pain