Beyond the Physical: Yoga as Therapy at Reset Wellness

YOGA AS THERAPY

Yoga Therapy is an exploration of "embodied mindfulness" to help you get connected to your body, and improve your stress coping mechanisms.

YOGA FOR ANXIETY, STRESS & TRAUMA RECOVERY

This practice was developed to offer a process of self-discovery.  Yoga Therapy addresses both psychological and physical issues, such as stress, anxiety, trauma and pain in your body and mind.

The process itself is defined by you and the kind of support you need, whether it is emotional, physical or spiritual. It teaches strategies for managing stress reactions, building on coping skills, learning about your body and how you are in it.

Yoga for Anxiety, Stress and Trauma compliments traditional psychotherapies and physical therapies by supporting the mind-body connection.

Our yoga therapist Shari Arial PTSD & Trauma Informed yoga therapist.  Shari facilitates a safe space for noticing yourself and how you are in your body, so it is a natural process for you to make your own connections about thought and body stress.

WORKSHOPS

Every month you can unfold and connect to your body and mind in our specialized Yoga for Anxiety, stress and Trauma, and Mind-Body Meditation workshops. Visit our Classes page for updated workshop dates, more info and online registration.

Workshops consist of small group sizes (max 5), and a chance to notice your thoughts and body during a gentle yoga practice. Insights shared are open-ended and non-directive.

PRIVATE SESSIONS

Yoga for Anxiety, Stress & Trauma private sessions are a 60 minute
empowering practice providing a private space to acknowledge psychological and physical energies that may be stored in the body.

Psychological methodologies are used in combination with gentle movement, breath-work and mindfulness techniques. The therapeutic goal is to promote a sense of safety within the body and support the nervous system coming back into balance.

BENEFITS

• Reduce stress and tension within the body

• Regulate the nervous system

• Learn how anxiety, stress and trauma may be affecting your body

• Learn take home coping skills

• Compliments traditional psychotherapies and physical therapies by supporting the mind-connection

WHAT A SESSION LOOKS LIKE

You are facilitated through an experience of yourself in the present moment. And whatever happens in the present moment - physically, emotionally, intellectually and spiritually finds richness in relationship to the bigger picture of how you are being in the world in daily life - work, play, family and relationships. Using age old yogic and modern therapeutic approaches to deepen awareness, acceptance and presence.

PRICES

• $40 / Workshop

• $110 / 60 minute private session

Private sessions are available to a single person or two people.

Prices exclude GST

WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING:

”Where has this been my whole life. Thank you.”

”I can’t believe how quickly things changed when using these tools.”

”Shari is amazing at holding space and I feel totally at ease with her.”

”I love that I have this time to just “be” with myself and work through things.”

”I didn’t know yoga could be like this.

MEET OUR YOGA THERAPIST

Shari Arial

PTSD & Trauma Informed Yoga Therapist

It's Official: Yoga Helps Depression

Evidence keeps stacking up that yoga is a boon for both physical and mental health conditions. Now, a small new study from Boston University finds that taking yoga classes twice a week may help ease depression, thanks in part to deep breathing.

The study, which was published in the Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine, included 30 people from ages 18 to 64 with clinical depression, who either were not taking antidepressants or had been on a steady dose for at least three months. Half of the participants were assigned to take a 90-minute Iyengar yoga class three times per week, as well as four 30-minute sessions at home each week. People in the other group took two group classes and three at-home sessions every week.

Iyengar yoga classes emphasize alignment, precise postures and controlled breathing. The classes taught in the study also included 20 minutes of slow, gentle breathing, at a rate of five inhales exhales through the nose per minute.

After about three months, most of the people in both groups had lowered their scores on a depression-screening questionnaire by at least 50%. Not surprisingly, more yoga was better; those who took three classes per week had lower depression scores than those who took two per week.

But since many participants mentioned that the larger time commitment was challenging, the researchers actually recommend two classes per week, saying that the regimen still comes with meaningful benefits.

That yoga seems to be effective is good news for people struggling with depression. Lead author Dr. Chris Streeter, associate professor of psychiatry and neurology at Boston University School of Medicine, says that the practice has far fewer side effects and potential drug interactions than mood-altering medications. The most common complaint reported in the study was a small one—temporary muscle soreness—and one participant experienced distressing thoughts while practicing breathing exercises at home.

Some people who haven’t responded to traditional treatments might do well with yoga, because unlike antidepressant drugs, yoga and deep breathing target the autonomic nervous system, Streeter says. “If your autonomic nervous system is balanced out, then the rest of the brain works better,” she says. Research shows that 40% of people on antidepressants do not recover fully from depression, says Streeter, which puts them at increased risk for a relapse. “Getting that 40% all the way better is a really important goal. Instead of adding another drug, I would argue that yoga is another thing you can add to the treatment regimen that might help.”

More research is needed to determine how yoga stacks up against other treatments. (A larger trial comparing yoga to walking is underway, the study notes.)

While Iyengar yoga is generally considered to be a safe practice for people of all levels, it’s not the only type with health benefits, Streeter adds. “It depends on who the person is and what they’re looking for,” she says. For now, what’s clear is that the type with the most health benefits will be whichever kind you stick with.

This article originally appeared on time.com and was written by AMANDA MACMILLAN.

Join in on the upcoming Yoga for Anxiety, Stress and Trauma Workshops. Be Sure to sign up for our newsletter to find out when the next workshops come up! For more information about our Meditation for Anxiety, Stress and Trauma, visit our event page!

The Busier You Are, The More You Need Quiet Time

In a recent interview with Vox’s Ezra Klein, journalist and author Ta-Nehisi Coates argued that serious thinkers and writers should get off Twitter.

It wasn’t a critique of the 140-character medium or even the quality of the social media discourse in the age of fake news.

It was a call to get beyond the noise.

For Coates, generating good ideas and quality work products requires something all too rare in modern life: quiet.

He’s in good company. Author JK Rowling, biographer Walter Isaacson, and psychiatrist Carl Jung have all had disciplined practices for managing the information flow and cultivating periods of deep silence. Ray Dalio, Bill George, California Governor Jerry Brown, and Ohio Congressman Tim Ryan have also described structured periods of silence as important factors in their success.

Recent studies are showing that taking time for silence restores the nervous system, helps sustain energy, and conditions our minds to be more adaptive and responsive to the complex environments in which so many of us now live, work, and lead. Duke Medical School’s Imke Kirste recently found that silence is associated with the development of new cells in the hippocampus, the key brain region associated with learning and memory. Physician Luciano Bernardi found that two-minutes of silence inserted between musical pieces proved more stabilizing to cardiovascular and respiratory systems than even the music categorized as “relaxing.” And a 2013 study in the Journal of Environmental Psychology, based on a survey of 43,000 workers, concluded that the disadvantages of noise and distraction associated with open office plans outweighed anticipated, but still unproven, benefits like increasing morale and productivity boosts from unplanned interactions.

But cultivating silence isn’t just about getting respite from the distractions of office chatter or tweets. Real sustained silence, the kind that facilitates clear and creative thinking, quiets inner chatter as well as outer.

This kind of silence is about resting the mental reflexes that habitually protect a reputation or promote a point of view. It’s about taking a temporary break from one of life’s most basic responsibilities: Having to think of what to say.

Cultivating silence, as Hal Gregersen writes in a recent HBR article, “increase[s] your chances of encountering novel ideas and information and discerning weak signals.” When we’re constantly fixated on the verbal agenda—what to say next, what to write next, what to tweet next—it’s tough to make room for truly different perspectives or radically new ideas. It’s hard to drop into deeper modes of listening and attention. And it’s in those deeper modes of attention that truly novel ideas are found.

Even incredibly busy people can cultivate periods of sustained quiet time. Here are four practical ideas:

1) Punctuate meetings with five minutes of quiet time. If you’re able to close the office door, retreat to a park bench, or find another quiet hideaway, it’s possible to hit reset by engaging in a silent practice of meditation or reflection.

2) Take a silent afternoon in nature. You need not be a rugged outdoors type to ditch the phone and go for a simple two-or-three-hour jaunt in nature. In our own experience and those of many of our clients, immersion in nature can be the clearest option for improving creative thinking capacities. Henry David Thoreau went to the woods for a reason.

3) Go on a media fast. Turn off your email for several hours or even a full day, or try “fasting” from news and entertainment. While there may still be plenty of noise around—family, conversation, city sounds—you can enjoy real benefits by resting the parts of your mind associated with unending work obligations and tracking social media or current events.

4) Take the plunge and try a meditation retreat: Even a short retreat is arguably the most straightforward way to turn toward deeper listening and awaken intuition. The journalist Andrew Sullivan recently described his experience at a silent retreat as “the ultimate detox.” As he put it: “My breathing slowed. My brain settled…It was if my brain were moving away from the abstract and the distant toward the tangible and the near.”

The world is getting louder. But silence is still accessible—it just takes commitment and creativity to cultivate it.

This article originally appeared on Harvard Business Review & was written by Justin Talbot-Zorn.