Although I can't talk about sciatica from personal experience, I have the next best thing – my mom suffers from it from time to time. And her first response when it "acts up" is to do the sciatica exercises she learned through yoga.

Being an adventurous and active kind of mother, grandmother and now "senior citizen," my mom has tried a variety of activities over the years to stay fit and youthful. So naturally she has done some yoga. She enjoyed a Gentle Yoga class at her local health club for a few years, but the class has since been discontinued, and not finding another one similar, her yoga practice has slacked off a bit. But when she feels that familiar discomfort down the back of one thigh, she turns to stretches she learned in her yoga classes, which she thinks of as her sciatica exercises for relief. The last time this happened my mom asked me for any recommendations, since she knows my interest in yoga has led me deeper in study over the last year.

Though you're not likely to find any poses in yoga that are officially referred to as "sciatica exercises," there are many poses that create length in the spine and the back of the legs or openness in the hips, that can improve and provide relief from this condition. Seated and standing forward folds stretch the long large muscles of the legs. The classic Downward Facing Dog strengthens the back while it stretches the legs, and poses like triangle work the whole body together, strengthening and stretching the side of the body. Hip stretches like Pigeon pose, can open the hip gently, releasing the pressure on the sciatic nerve. Other postures stretch the piriformis muscle, which can also cause sciatica. So knowing my mom's ability level and the specifics of her discomfort, I suggested a few poses that I thought could help her.

If you suffer from sciatica, there is a lot of information out there to help you find the right exercises to  relieve your pain. If you're a yoga enthusiast and have a teacher that you trust, they may be able to make some recommendations. If you are a do-it-yourselfer and have a few books on yoga, chances are that you have a few ideas to start with already. Many yoga books that provide detailed instructions and information on the poses, include information on the benefits of each pose individually. Finding relief could be as easy as concentrating on the exercises that are good for hip opening and hamstring stretching, some may even refer to sciatica by name. If you want a more direct guide, a simple on-line search will turn up dozens, even hundreds of books and DVDs full of advice and sciatica exercises for you to follow.