Yoga Therapy

What is Yoga Therapy?

While the practice of yoga itself is inherently therapeutic, yoga therapy applies select yoga techniques and principles to individuals’ specific – usually health-related - concerns.

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Most people consider yoga’s physical practices its main value. These practices are very effective at promoting, maintaining, and restoring vibrant physical health. Yet there’s much more to yoga’s holistic model of health including physical, mental, emotional, and even spiritual aspects of our being. In yoga therapy, we work with the body, breath, and mind in response to assessing how these are habitually patterned as we go about our lives. (definition from Spanda Yoga Movement Therapy)

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In therapeutic yoga sessions, we take yogic practices and adapt them to the specific needs of the individual. The needs range from physical to mental and emotional conditions, post-surgery/injury rehab, knee/hip replacements, amputations, cancer, arthritis, fibromyalgia, migraines, PTSD, anxiety, depression, burnout, and so on. 

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So, really, what is Yoga therapy? That's a question that really can't be answered in a few sentences.  The first thing we should get out of the way is that most of us view yoga as exercise, physical activity, and some stretching. While that is absolutely one of its many parts, yoga consists of eight limbs, And within those eight limbs are many other details and practices to support us in living a balanced Life. Yoga asks us to look deep inside and be kind, truthful, and with ourselves and others, to take a deep dive into our true nature through self-study and self-discipline by choosing the purest forms of being and learning to be content with where we are and what we have. That is just a brief synopsis of the first two limbs of yoga.

The third limb we are all very familiar with is called Asana, which translates to seat or pose, so that is what we do when we walk into our local yoga studios, roll our mats out, and do some stretches for an hour or so, but it's deeper than that. We practice asana to keep our bodies healthy and build strength and flexibility, allowing us to sit comfortably in meditation.

Learning to regulate the breath, to withdraw from our senses. Being able to stay focused on what we are doing while there might be some chaos around us, we're not oblivious to this chaos, but we're not attaching ourselves to it. An example of this is being at home on a Zoom call for work, and some landscaping and stuff is going on outside, and they're making quite a ruckus; you know that they're there, but you're not attaching yourself to what is happening outside you're staying focused you're keeping your mind focused on the work at hand. 

We then move into concentration and meditation. Concentration lets the mind focus on one point, and meditation allows the mind to become calm and tranquil. These are some of the tools that we use in a yoga therapy session along with Ayurveda. Ayurveda is a 5,000-year-old holistic health system working with your constitutional makeup. To create a path for your holistic Wellness and a Balanced Life, Tools include diet and lifestyle and support our subtle body energies, like the chakras. 

Yoga therapy supports the whole of you. As a Yoga Therapist, I apply my knowledge and training in Anatomy, Yoga (adaptive and trauma-informed), Ayurveda, Clinical, Orthopedic, and Adaptive exercise, Health Coaching, and personal training. I meet and support you where you are in your mind, body, and soul.