Yoga Therapy: Why Doctors Are Prescribing The Ancient Practice

In 2011, Jacquelyn Jackson had the most traumatizing year of her life. On a beautiful morning in Tucson, she was just 25 feet away when her former boss, Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, and 18 others were shot in a grocery store parking lot. In the weeks that followed, as Jackson began suffering symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (including chronic anxiety and difficulty sleeping), she turned to a psychotherapist. The sessions helped “tremendously,” she says but 11 months later, when her seemingly healthy younger brother died suddenly from a brain tumor. “the trauma was so great I felt like I needed something more.”

Desperate, Jackson looked online for support and stumbled upon yoga therapy, an emerging treatment for people struggling with anxiety, grief, and trauma. Long practiced in India, yoga therapy was introduced in the United States some three decades ago but has begun gaining popularity only in the past five years or so. (Membership in the International Association of Yoga Therapists [IAYT] has quadrupled since 2004, to about 3,200, and next year the IAYT plans to begin accrediting yoga schools to offer a standardized certification program.)

“It’s not just postures,” says yoga therapist Janice Gates. “We use all the tools of yoga — breath work, sound, visualization, and meditation — and tailor them to a client’s specific health condition.” One of Gates’s clients was a woman in her 40s who was experiencing serious depression and anxiety but couldn’t tolerate psychiatric medication. While a doctor oversaw the medical issues, Gates worked with the client weekly to manage her moods. On days when she was anxious, Gates led her through exercises like standing poses and forward bends (to help her feel more grounded) and exhalation breath work (to calm her down). When the woman was depressed, she did back bends and inhalation exercises, designed to give her energy. Six months later, the woman’s crippling dark moods, once a thrice-weekly occurrence, now overtake her only a few times each month. With her newfound energy — and time — she’s teaching art classes to children.

Though research on the efficacy of yoga therapy is ongoing, traditional doctors are taking notice — and finding it, in some cases, to be a valuable complement to the work they’re already doing. “Yoga therapy can be extremely helpful for people who need a way to work through what they’re experiencing, not just in their minds but in their bodies,” says psychotherapist Jack Obedzinski, MD, of Corte Madera, California. “Often, it allows my patients to experience a feeling of calm in a way they couldn’t in talk therapy.” And, he says, this calmness can bring more clarity and awareness to their traditional sessions.

For Jackson, one-on-one yoga appointments with Amy Weintraub, a pioneer in the field and author of Yoga for Depression, proved transformative. In their first session, Jackson “was practically hyperventilating with anxiety,” says Weintraub, who created a program that included “stair-step” breathing, building up to deeper and deeper breaths. “What the yoga did was provide a slow, gradual path to help her manage her moods and not immediately react when grief arose.” After just a few sessions, Jackson no longer used medication to help her sleep at night. “Working with Amy was like doing emotional Roto-Rooter-ing,” she says. “I had so much stress in my body, and she was able to help dislodge it — and clear it out.”

This article originally appeared on huffingtonpost.com and was written By Laura Hilgers.

Check out our UPCOMING MENTAL WELLNESS WORKSHOPS with Shari Arial: Yoga for Anxiety, Stress & Trauma.

Yoga as Therapy for Individual Care

YOGA THERAPY uses the tools of yoga to achieve specific outcomes according to the needs of the individual. It is fast becoming an accepted health modality in Canada, offering all people, including those experiencing a wide range of ailments or disabilities, guidance and personal tools that they can use to enhance their life.

At Reset Wellness on Whyte we cater to your needs with two specialties within Yoga Therapy, emotional and physical support, and Private Hatha Yoga.

“Being authentic means taking the elevator down inside ourselves and noticing whatever we happen to be experiencing right now. It may change from moment to moment.”

— Dr. Sue Johnson

PHOENIX RISING YOGA THERAPY invites people into a safe, predictable and non-judgmental space to help find peace in the present moment. People will develop an awareness of, and begin to experience their bodies in new ways so that they can gain acceptance and a more compassionate relationship with their bodies. This then enables them to befriend, reclaim and feel safe in their bodies so that they can explore the interaction between their mind and their body.

Phoenix Rising Yoga Therapy invites people into a safe, predictable and non-judgmental space to help find peace in the present moment. People will develop an awareness of, and begin to experience their bodies in new ways so that they can gain acceptance and a more compassionate relationship with their bodies. This then enables them to befriend, reclaim and feel safe in their bodies so that they can explore the interaction between their mind and their body.

The effects of trauma whether from childhood abuse and/or, neglect, ignorance, assault, disaster, accident, injury, disease, illness or disability causes feelings of shock, pain, sadness and guilt. This then becomes locked in the body, causing unresolved stress and trauma with survivors becoming disconnected from, and untrusting of their bodies.

Phoenix Rising Yoga Therapy helps to unlock pain in a sensitive, supportive way, using especially chosen physical postures, breathing techniques and Yoga Psychology. It helps identify triggers, and face, accept and bear the effects of the trauma. It aids in increasing mental clarity, concentration and steadier emotions. It is not contorting the body into unattainable positions and people will work at their own capacity. Compassionately guided by Shari Arial, Edmonton's only Phoenix Rising Yoga Therapist.

Shari Arial, Phoenix Rising Yoga Therapist

“Focus on keeping your spine straight. It is the job of the spine to keep the brain alert. ”

— B.K.S. Iyengar

STRUCTURAL YOGA THERAPY invites people with alignment, functional or structural health issues to safely be supported through holistic, individualized treatment plans, helping people build confidence, balance, coordination, improved techniques, greater range of movement and strength. People will develop the awareness of physical imbalance at its true point, often away from the site of pain, and be taught how to move their body according to its needs. This enables a sense of ability and accomplishment in the individual, helping people feel their health is 'in their hands'.

Injury, poor posture, weight issues, or disabilities have lingering effects on the whole body, affecting the integrity and strength of more than just the site of the issue, sometimes silently. Unresolved physical stress compounds locally, but also extends as a chain-reaction to surrounding tissues, organs, and systems. For those with acute or chronic pain, the chain-reaction is often predictable, a pattern of physical stress that can be turned around.

Structural Yoga Therapy helps move you in to better health and well-being in an attentive, supportive way, using specialized treatment plans to achieve your personal health goals overtime and within your limits. It helps foster a sense of connection and acceptance of your body, while teaching about the strategies and power in ourselves, to be the force behind our own health. Shari Arial can help you reach your goals of physical discipline, relaxation or transformation with a structural approach to Yoga Therapy.
 

“Yoga teaches us to cure what need not be endured and endure what can not be cured”

— B.K.S. Iyengar

PRIVATE HATHA YOGA invites people in to a safe, private environment to learn and practice yoga for their own personal sense of relaxation and achievement. Under the full, gentle attention of April Kosinski - Yin, Yang, Hatha and Myofascial Yoga Instructor - sessions are designed to gradually improve yoga skills, postures and techniques - according to your goals - helping build confidence within a practice. One on one sessions are 75 mins in a comfortable, quiet space, no other students around for the ultimate, tailored experience with yoga.

"Feeling sad? Sit in Lotus. Better yet, rise up into a backbend or soar royally into King Dancer Pose. While it’s not as simple as that, one study found that a consistent yoga practice improved depression and led to a significant increase in serotonin levels and a decrease in the levels of monoamine oxidase (an enzyme that breaks down neurotransmitters) and cortisol. At the University of Wisconsin, Richard Davidson, Ph.D., found that the left prefrontal cortex showed heightened activity in meditators, a finding that has been correlated with greater levels of happiness and better immune function. More dramatic left-sided activation was found in dedicated, long-term practitioners." -Timothy McCall, M.D. 

April Kosinski, Yoga Instructor

What Your Body Tells You About Your Emotional (Mental) State

Bruce Lipton, a leading development biologist who believes that genes and DNA can be manipulated by our beliefs is not the only brilliant mind to propose such a mind-bending idea. In fact, he says that our DNA and cells do not control our health, our emotions do. Yogis have known for centuries that what we think and feel affects the physical body. It is one of the foundational components of almost any yogic path. Utilizing the teachings of our farthest reaching wisdom traditions and the newest biological advances, we can learn how to look at the body for signs of its deepest, darkest challenges.

The Human Genome Project Was a Failure

Scientists were hoping to map out more than 100,000 genes when studying the human genome, in order to find disease markers, and therefore prevent them, but only 25,000 genes were discovered, and ‘junk’ DNA is still a totally mystery to most scientists. Even more interesting is the fact that you can entirely remove the nucleus of a cell and its DNA and it will still function. Contrary to what was once believed, the cell’s nucleus is not its brain. If, however, you destroy the cell membrane, then the cell dies because it can no longer interact with other cells. Are our cells telling us something about how we interact with the world as a whole?

Through his passionate research, Bruce Lipton discovered that, “The cell membrane is a liquid crystal semi conductor with gates and channels.” He also said in Biology of Belief that, ‘our cells are like programmable personal computers.” That means consciousness, namely our emotional state, can lead to some pretty profound changes in the body.

“The major crisis of the human race is not of raising our IQs, it is one of elevating our WILL quotients. We must will ourselves to happiness, and thereby experience true health.”

Our Physical Bodies Alert Us to Emotional States

Maybe it seems strange that we should look at our bodies for evidence of an emotion, after all, don’t we just feel something like anger, pain, frustration, fear, guilt, etc. when it happens? We don’t need to look at the body to understand an emotion, or do we? It’s not always that simple. Our emotions are intertwined with how we get our needs met from a very young age, so, if you weren’t ever allowed to be ‘angry’ even in situations where this would be a natural emotion, then instead of that anger being felt and expressed, and properly released, it becomes waylaid by the conscious mind. Instead, it is seen as ‘wrong’ and then pushed down into the subconscious mind so that you can ‘deal with it later.’

We can do this temporarily quite well, such as when we learn to hold our tongue when having a disagreement, and due to respect or love, or societal pressures, we choose to communicate our feelings at a later time, when they feel less charged. The problem is that when we push emotions down too long, the subconscious mind will start saying ‘hey, you’ve got some stuff to deal with down here.’

Neuropeptides Lead the Game

Every time you think a thought there is probably emotion attached to it. Perhaps it is positive, perhaps negative, but rarely, is it neutral. With every charged thought you think, miniscule neuropeptides, or chemical proteins trigger a specific physiological response to try to keep your overall system in homeostatis. Examples of neuropeptides are endorphins like the ones released when you have sex or go for a jog, and other hormones, like oxytocin, the natural ‘love’ drug, adrenaline, the natural drug of excitement and fear, cortisol, the hormone of stress, and so on. There are dozens of these neuropeptides being released at any given moment.

Whatever your most consistent emotional state is, then, that is also what chemical cocktail being released into your body, and thereby shapes your physical features. The more prolonged the emotional state is experienced, the more profound the changes can be visually

“Never get angry for anger poisons your system.” – Paramahansa Yogananda

Anger Causes High Cholesterol and Happiness Helps You Live Longer

Scientists have now been able to measure emotions, including their physiological response on the body. For example, anger causes higher cholesterol levels and a faster resting heart rate. Prolonged sadness can cause depression, which leads to a depleted immune system. But how do we ‘wear’ these emotions on the physical body?

Emotions, like any other thought, have a vibrational frequency. Emotions of peace, love, excitement, serenity, joy and thankfulness are of a higher vibration and emotions of anger, fear, and sadness hold lower vibrations. Lipton’s work talks in depth about how emotions can even affect DNA.

Part of the reason that emotions affect us so significantly is because the heart emits a stronger electro-magnetic force than the brain, so even if you are intellectually editing yourself, your true emotions are still being broadcast throughout the body, and arguably, beyond it. The brain entrains with the heart, and not vice versa. The brain becomes coherent with the vibration of the heart. It may sound shocking but recent studies show that depression causes more heart disease than smoking! Depressed people even have stickier blood platelets, so they are more likely to ‘die of a broken heart.’

Observing the Body for Emotional Patterns

As a rule, the left side of the body reflects what has happened to you and how you respond emotionally to your past.  The right side of the body will often display what your emotions are about your future. The front side of the body is the emotional self you present to the world; obvious in your facial features, your posture, etc. Your back side will reflect emotions that you don’t want to deal with or expose to other people. Unexpressed or sublimated emotions will get ‘stuck’ in your back, shoulders, calves, etc. When too many negative emotions are stuffed away where you can’t see them, or feel them, they can cause the body to come out of balance.

Chinese medicine agrees that emotions can create stagnation in the energy of the body, leading to issues with the spleen, heart, kidneys, liver, bladder, gallbladder, etc. They usually categorize the emotions into seven distinct areas – grief, sorrow, worry, fear, joy, anger and fright.  Following are some more general rules about how emotions display in the physical body:

Your head hurts, or your brow is often furrowed: This means you need to stop ignoring your intuition and trust what your ‘higher self’ is trying to tell you about a situation or person. Basically, you need to pay attention to your gut. A pain in the back of the head, instead of the forehead means you haven’t forgiven yourself for perceived faults or past mistakes.

Nearsightedness or Farsightedness: This means you have trouble ‘seeing things clearly.’ Farsighted folks often pine away for the future and nearsighted folks can’t seeing anything but the nose on their own faces. Seeing the here and now accurately is difficult for either person with sight issues. Meditation is one way to offload emotions that cause you to feel uncomfortable in the here and now.

Hearing Problems are similar – it may mean you are tuning out.

Our mouths are associated with our expression of sensuality. If you have lost your taste, it can literally mean you have disconnected from reality because it ‘leaves a bad taste in your mouth.’ This part of the body is also connected with the second chakra, or Swadhistana, which governs all the sexual organs. If you can’t experience pleasure without guilt or over-indulge in sexual gratification, it will also lead to pursed lips or an unattractive mouth.

Your neck and shoulders support the head, but are also the gateway between the head and heart – or the Anahata Chakra (Heart Chakra) and Ajna Chakra (Pineal Gland Center). Issues with the throat, and neck, or tightness in the shoulders may mean you are having a hard time integrating mental acuity and tempering it with compassion. If you are overly intellectual, you may have shoulder and neck problems.  This is the most narrow part of the body between the torso and head, and therefore, a place that easily gets congested energetically. Yoga poses like Matsyasana (Fish Pose) and Halasana (Plow Pose) can help to release blockages here, and the emotions that are stored without conscious awareness.

The Arms and Hands are how you reach out to others. Any stagnation of positive emotion regarding extending yourself to others can manifest as physical symptoms here.

An enclosed and protected heart often means you hunch over and have a constricted chest and lungs. If you have a hard time expressing love or accepting love from others, you will possibly have blockages in your chest, lungs and heart.

There are all kinds of physical issues that can appear based on the health of your spine. Since the spine literally supports your body, ailments regarding the spinal column often reflect feelings of non-support or lack of love. Pain in the mid-back is associated to deficiency in the stomach liver, gallbladder, adrenals, and reproductive organs. Issues with the lower back are connected to the hips, large intestine, immune system, bladder, and kidneys. Childhood trauma that hasn’t been dealt with properly often manifests in lower back problems.

There are literally dozens of other ways that your emotions show on your body, and as recent, paradigm-shifting evidence is showing, feeling happy, calm, and free are the best ways to change not only your health, but your physical appearance. Happiness is better even than plastic surgery, and certainly better than chemotherapy or pharmaceuticals at keeping you profoundly alive and healthy.

While we can’t nor should stuff our emotions down, including negative ones, we can learn to control them and shift our attention to positive feelings as often as possible to dramatically change our bodies – right down to our DNA.

This article originally appeared on wakingtimes.com and is written by Christina Sarich.

How Can Phoenix Rising Yoga Therapy Help You?

By Shari Arial

We all have an internal guiding compass, something inside us that truly knows what we want and need in our lives.

Well, what does that mean exactly?

Think of intuition, emotion and sickness as salesmen at your front door.

First intuition knocks ever so sweetly but you are in the kitchen busily doing your list of things to do.  You pause because you think you heard something, but don’t give it a second thought. It eventually goes away.

Then comes emotion. It knocks a little louder and this time you peek through the blinds to see who is there. You still don’t answer but you know emotion is out there, and you feel as if it knows you are there. It lingers on your doorstep.

Finally, sickness comes to your house. It does not knock or wait for an invitation. It kicks down your door, steps into your foyer and yells, “Honey I am home”!!!

Have you had this happen to you– where you know something is going on but either can’t tune into it or are unsure of what it means? We all have an internal guiding compass, something inside us that truly knows what we want and need in our lives. The trouble is that sometimes we become so overwhelmed by our lives that we don’t feel we have the time to slow down and tune in. It is when we completely ignore our body’s wisdom that sickness steps into our lives and that’s when we usually become aware of something needing to change.

But what if there was a way to tap into that intuition– that ever so subtle knock at the door?

A Phoenix Rising Yoga Therapy session gives you the opportunity to explore what is happening in you in the present moment, to get quiet and listen. Thoughts, emotions, sensations, images, LIFE, are all stored in the body and can cause physical or emotional pain. A Phoenix Rising session uses supported yoga postures and yogic techniques along with a dialogue process that is self-directed. Imagine restoring your body for an hour in a supportive environment where you can reflect on your own wisdom and what you truly need, and bring that awareness into your life. And the best part is no yoga experience is required.

Change happens when you open the door to the salesmen and acknowledge that they are, in fact, standing on your doorstep and consider what they have to sell you today.

“So often we run from our uncomfortable situations and never allow them to teach us.” ~ Michael Lee, Founder of Phoenix Rising Yoga Therapy