Yoga Therapy: The Newest Health Trend that Doctors are Paying Attention To

Wellness enthusiasts have long known the healing benefits of yoga. However, the popularity of this ancient practice is now growing among today’s mainstream, especially doctors. Today, there is a rise in doctor-prescribed yoga therapy, even among Western-trained doctors.

So what is yoga therapy? Why is it a growing trend? Will yoga therapy help patients feel better? Here is some insight.

What is Yoga Therapy?

Yoga therapy involves a variety of practices that can help ease a natural process or improve a health condition. Some of the therapeutic tools that are used are breathing exercises, physical postures, guided imagery and meditation. Diet is also considered part of yoga therapy.

While regular yoga, depending on the type, can be fast-paced and physically demanding, yoga therapy serves as a safe, gentler alternative. It is led by yoga teachers who are specially trained to work with patients suffering from various health conditions. Just as each patient is different, the styles and formats of yoga therapy also differ greatly. They can vary from small therapeutic classes and one-on-one sessions to chair yoga in nursing homes and hospitals.

Yoga therapy takes a more holistic approach to healing, focusing on patients as a whole instead of just on their conditions. The practice simultaneously works on the body, mind, and spirit, strengthening the body’s different systems. These include the heart and cardiovascular system, muscles, the lungs, as well as the body’s nervous system.

Individuals may suffer from multiple conditions at once, so yoga therapy can be a multi-purpose form of healing. Yoga practices can simultaneously improve digestive system function, nurture psychological well-being, and enhance delivery of oxygen to the body’s tissues. Yoga also can assist the body to more effectively remove carcinogens, waste products and toxins.

Why Is It a Growing Trend?

Yoga therapy is still considered to be a new professional field. However, it is now recognized worldwide as a clinically viable treatment. There are established yoga therapy programs at major health care centers and clinics around the United States. It is increasingly being used regularly in health care facilities and hospitals. As more and more physicians see that yoga therapy helps their patients feel better, it is increasingly becoming a component of medical care.

For the last 12 years, the International Association of Yoga Therapists (IAYT), which has over 3,400 individual members from 48 countries, has worked hard to establish yoga as an esteemed and recognized therapy in the West. It has published an annual peer-reviewed medical journal, presented at academic research conferences, and received an NIH grant to create rigorous yoga therapy certification standards. It is now accrediting training programs and beginning to certify therapist graduates.

The IAYT database of yoga-therapy training programs has grown from five in 2003 to more than 130 schools worldwide today. These include 24 arduous multi-year programs that have been recently accredited by IAYT; there are an additional 20 still under review. As of 2015, most IAYT yoga-therapy practitioners work in hospital settings, while others work in outpatient clinics or physical therapy, oncology, or rehabilitation departments as well as in private practice.

Clinical research is partly responsible for the growing acceptance of yoga therapy in the health care sector. A growing body of research documents the proven benefits of yoga when using it to treat a wide range of health conditions, including anxiety, back pain, insomnia and depression. It is also proven to help reduce risk factors for hypertension and cardiovascular disease. Research also shows that yoga therapy has been successful in alleviating the side effects of cancer treatment. Some patients who have practiced yoga while undergoing radiation therapy have reported lower levels of fatigue, stress and a better quality of life.

Is Yoga Therapy Effective?

Yoga therapy has been proven to be a particularly effective way to reduce stress. This is good news for most people in the West, who encounter high levels of stress on a daily basis. Stress has been known to cause or contribute to varying medical problems, ranging from irritable bowel syndrome, migraine headaches and potentially life-threatening conditions such as heart disease, diabetes and osteoporosis.

When combined with other types of health care, whether alternative or conventional, yoga therapy has proven to be particularly effective, especially in healing chronic ailments. For instance, studies show that in addition to reducing the side effects of chemotherapy and radiation treatments for cancer patients, yoga therapy can also enable faster recovery after bypass surgery. In clinical trials, many patients with high blood pressure, type II diabetes or asthma, who began practicing yoga regularly, were able to lower the lower the dosage of drugs they needed or eliminate some pills entirely. For patients, less medication means fewer side effects, not to mention, greater monetary savings.
The Future of Yoga Therapy

It will still take more time for the practitioners and patients to fully accept yoga therapy as a primary approach to their medical treatment. But even as a supplemental approach, yoga therapy is making great strides. The growing body of scientific research documenting its health benefits is great evidence that yoga therapy is here to stay.

This article originally appeared on huffingtonpost.com and was written by Avital Scharf.

Yoga Therapy services available through Reset Wellness, visit our website for more details.

The health benefits of Tai Chi

This gentle form of exercise can help maintain strength, flexibility, and balance, and could be the perfect activity for the rest of your life.

Tai chi is often described as "meditation in motion," but it might well be called "medication in motion." There is growing evidence that this mind-body practice, which originated in China as a martial art, has value in treating or preventing many health problems. And you can get started even if you aren't in top shape or the best of health.

In this low-impact, slow-motion exercise, you go without pausing through a series of motions named for animal actions — for example, "white crane spreads its wings" — or martial arts moves, such as "box both ears." As you move, you breathe deeply and naturally, focusing your attention — as in some kinds of meditation — on your bodily sensations. Tai chi differs from other types of exercise in several respects. The movements are usually circular and never forced, the muscles are relaxed rather than tensed, the joints are not fully extended or bent, and connective tissues are not stretched. Tai chi can be easily adapted for anyone, from the most fit to people confined to wheelchairs or recovering from surgery.

Tai chi movement

A tai chi class practices a short form at the Tree of Life Tai Chi Center in Watertown, Mass.

"A growing body of carefully conducted research is building a compelling case for tai chi as an adjunct to standard medical treatment for the prevention and rehabilitation of many conditions commonly associated with age," says Peter M. Wayne, assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and director of the Tai Chi and Mind-Body Research Program at Harvard Medical School's Osher Research Center. An adjunct therapy is one that's used together with primary medical treatments, either to address a disease itself or its primary symptoms, or, more generally, to improve a patient's functioning and quality of life.

Belief systems

You don't need to subscribe to or learn much about tai chi's roots in Chinese philosophy to enjoy its health benefits, but these concepts can help make sense of its approach:

• Qi — an energy force thought to flow through the body; tai chi is said to unblock and encourage the proper flow of qi.

• Yin and yang — opposing elements thought to make up the universe that need to be kept in harmony. Tai chi is said to promote this balance.

Tai chi in motion

A tai chi class might include these parts:

Warm-up. Easy motions, such as shoulder circles, turning the head from side to side, or rocking back and forth, help you to loosen your muscles and joints and focus on your breath and body.

Instruction and practice of tai chi forms. Short forms — forms are sets of movements — may include a dozen or fewer movements; long forms may include hundreds. Different styles require smaller or larger movements. A short form with smaller, slower movements is usually recommended at the beginning, especially if you're older or not in good condition.

Qigong (or chi kung). Translated as "breath work" or "energy work," this consists of a few minutes of gentle breathing sometimes combined with movement. The idea is to help relax the mind and mobilize the body's energy. Qigong may be practiced standing, sitting, or lying down.

Getting started

The benefits of tai chi are generally greatest if you begin before you develop a chronic illness or functional limitations. Tai chi is very safe, and no fancy equipment is needed, so it's easy to get started. Here's some advice for doing so:

Don't be intimidated by the language. Names like Yang, Wu, and Cheng are given to various branches of tai chi, in honor of people who devised the sets of movements called forms. Certain programs emphasize the martial arts aspect of tai chi rather than its potential for healing and stress reduction. In some forms, you learn long sequences of movements, while others involve shorter series and more focus on breathing and meditation. The name is less important than finding an approach that matches your interests and needs.

Check with your doctor . If you have a limiting musculoskeletal problem or medical condition — or if you take medications that can make you dizzy or lightheaded — check with your doctor before starting tai chi. Given its excellent safety record, chances are that you'll be encouraged to try it.

Consider observing and taking a class. Taking a class may be the best way to learn tai chi. Seeing a teacher in action, getting feedback, and experiencing the camaraderie of a group are all pluses. Most teachers will let you observe the class first to see if you feel comfortable with the approach and atmosphere. Instruction can be individualized. Ask about classes at your local Y, senior center, or community education center. The Arthritis Foundation (www.arthritis.org; 800-283-7800, toll-free) can tell you whether its tai chi program, a 12-movement, easy-to-learn sequence, is offered in your area.

If you'd rather learn at home, you can buy or rent videos geared to your interests and fitness needs (see "Selected resources"). Although there are some excellent tai chi books, it can be difficult to appreciate the flow of movements from still photos or illustrations.

Talk to the instructor. There's no standard training or licensing for tai chi instructors, so you'll need to rely on recommendations from friends or clinicians and, of course, your own judgment. Look for an experienced teacher who will accommodate individual health concerns or levels of coordination and fitness.

Dress comfortably. Choose loose-fitting clothes that don't restrict your range of motion. You can practice barefoot or in lightweight, comfortable, and flexible shoes. Tai chi shoes are available, but ones you find in your closet will probably work fine. You'll need shoes that won't slip and can provide enough support to help you balance, but have soles thin enough to allow you to feel the ground. Running shoes, designed to propel you forward, are usually unsuitable.

Gauge your progress. Most beginning programs and tai chi interventions tested in medical research last at least 12 weeks, with instruction once or twice a week and practice at home. By the end of that time, you should know whether you enjoy tai chi, and you may already notice positive physical and psychological changes.

No pain, big gains

Although tai chi is slow and gentle and doesn't leave you breathless, it addresses the key components of fitness — muscle strength, flexibility, balance, and, to a lesser degree, aerobic conditioning. Here's some of the evidence:

Muscle strength. Tai chi can improve both lower-body strength and upper-body strength. When practiced regularly, tai chi can be comparable to resistance training and brisk walking.

"Although you aren't working with weights or resistance bands, the unsupported arm exercise involved in tai chi strengthens your upper body," says internist Dr. Gloria Yeh, an assistant professor at Harvard Medical School. "Tai chi strengthens both the lower and upper extremities and also the core muscles of the back and abdomen."

Flexibility. Tai chi can boost upper- and lower-body flexibility as well as strength.

Balance. Tai chi improves balance and, according to some studies, reduces falls. Proprioception — the ability to sense the position of one's body in space — declines with age. Tai chi helps train this sense, which is a function of sensory neurons in the inner ear and stretch receptors in the muscles and ligaments. Tai chi also improves muscle strength and flexibility, which makes it easier to recover from a stumble. Fear of falling can make you more likely to fall; some studies have found that tai chi training helps reduce that fear.

Aerobic conditioning. Depending on the speed and size of the movements, tai chi can provide some aerobic benefits. If your clinician advises a more intense cardio workout with a higher heart rate than tai chi can offer, you may need something more aerobic as well.

This article originally appeared on www.health.harvard.edu.

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How Floating is Treating Anxiety

They started late one night, the tremors that shook Michael Harding’s whole body when he lay down to sleep. “A bit weird,” thought Harding, then a 23-year-old Australian soldier stationed in Afghanistan. Just days before, he’d been in an hours-long siege in which his second-in-command was shot and killed.

Harding soon started shaking so much that he had to ask a friend to light his cigarettes. He couldn’t drink water from a bottle without pouring it down his shirt, and in the mess hall, his twitches got so spastic that he’d sometimes flip his tray.

He was medically discharged from the army in 2012 with severe PTSD and left with a new personality: withdrawn and unemotional. His sleep suffered, too. He had nightmares and night sweats.

To handle his worsening symptoms, Harding tried two kinds of talk therapy, four kinds of medication, and large nightly doses of scotch and Coke. When each of those failed, he turned to yoga, juicing, meditation and medicinal pot. That helped a little, but Harding’s anxiety and muscle spasms still hadn’t abated.

Around that time, his wife did what any desperate person would: she started poking around in online forums for something else that may help with his PTSD. She found glowing testimonials for floating, the practice of lying belly-up in a tank filled with warm water so salty you float.

– At the Float Clinic and Research Center at the Laureate Institute for Brain Research in Tulsa, OK, Feinstein uses a NeuroVerse brainstation EEG device to measure brain waves, wirelessly –

“To me, it seemed like a sham,” Harding says. But in March last year, he decided to try it anyway. He fell asleep in the tank, he says, and woke up an hour later feeling refreshed. By three floats, Harding says his anxiety and hyper-vigilance had subsided. By three months of floating, so had his night sweats. “After floating, I was really mellowed out,” he says. “I’m not really sure how it does it, but I do know that floating has allowed me to feel in a more confident, comfortable headspace.”

While floating has always had fans in the wellness world, it’s undeniably grown in popularity. In 2011, there were 85 float centers in the United States, according to Aaron Thompson, who runs an online directory of flotation centers, and now there are more than 250. Floating has also attracted the interest of a small group of scientists who are trying to figure out if it has a place as a kind of therapy for some kinds of distress, including PTSD. Any proof that this helps people with stress disorders is anecdotal at this point, but something special appears to happen in brain while the body floats. Now, some scientists, like the neuropsychologist Justin Feinstein, are trying to find out what.

Feinstein believes so deeply in the therapeutic potential of floating that he built his whole career, and laboratory, around trying to prove it. This year he opened the only float lab in the country: the Float Clinic and Research Center at the Laureate Institute for Brain Research in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Inside, you won’t find the claustrophobic coffin-like pods that make up most of the float tank market. His custom-made float pool has no enclosure, ensuring that people with anxiety disorders won’t be afraid to get in.

Then you open the door to the float room, you’re hit with warm air heated to the temperature of your skin. In the middle is a small, circular pool the size of a hot tub filled with 2,000 pounds of Epsom salt. Sit down, and you’ll bob like a buoy; lie back, and you’ll float without tensing a muscle. Press a button on the side of the tank, and the blue lights fade off into black.

You can’t see anything while you float. But what Feinstein can see going on in your brain is astounding.

In his research, he has floaters stick small waterproof sensors and an EEG device on their forehead to measure their brain waves, wirelessly. Down the hall is an MRI machine that people enter after they float.

Feinstein and his team are more than halfway through the first experiment ever to combine fMRI brain imaging and float tanks. They’re scanning the brains of healthy people before and after they float, and by comparing the two images, they’ll see how floating changes areas of activation in the brain.

Recent advances in neuroscience have allowed scientists to look inside the human brain during practices like meditation and see how brain activity changes. Research from fMRI studies show that meditating activates parts of the brain associated with attention and decreases activation in the amygdala, the part of the brain that kicks off the fight-or-flight response to a real or perceived threat—though the changes are more pronounced in expert meditators than beginners. Plenty of other research demonstrates the benefits of the practice, and its acceptance by the medical establishment has followed. The stance of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) is that research supports meditation for lowering blood pressure, easing symptoms of anxiety and depression and more, and the agency funds research on the topic.

NIH has yet, however, to provide funding for the investigation of flotation. Feinstein believes floating could be a shortcut for many people to reach a meditative state, and reap some of its proven benefits. “Floating has given me hope that a whole chunk of our population that normally would never be able to meditate could now achieve those sorts of deep meditative states,” Feinstein says.

The ongoing research is in its very early stages, but Feinstein and his team are seeing that floating tamps down anxiety in the brain in a way that rivals some prescription drugs and meditation. Back in 2005, Feinstein and his colleagues wondered what happened to the brain when a person took lorazepam, a drug sold under the brand name Ativan. It’s highly effective at reducing anxiety, but it can also be addictive.

They tested the drug on healthy volunteers, and neither the researchers nor the participants knew who was given lorazepam or a placebo. But the differences in their brains were unmistakable. On lorazepam, Feinstein says, the amygdala—where the fight-or-flight stress response originates—“basically shuts off,” which doesn’t happen with relaxation alone.
Now, a decade later, his current study replicates the lorazepam experiment using flotation instead of drugs. He scanned everyone’s brain before the experiment started, and then split his group of volunteers in half. Both groups got what they believed to be the intervention: either a 90-minute float or the same amount of time in a relaxing reclining chair. He gave everyone two sessions to let the novelty of the interventions die down, and then scanned their brain after the third session.

“Essentially what we found in the preliminary data is that the amygdala is shutting off post-float,” Feinstein says. “It’s nice to see that that can be done in a way that doesn’t require medication.”

Of course, for the scientific community to embrace floating, reproducible results—and many more studies—are needed.

Feinstein isn’t the first scientist to be fascinated by floating. Isolation tanks were invented and developed by scientists in the 1950s. But the widely credited founder, neuroscientist John C. Lilly, was “kind of a wackadoodle,” as Feinstein puts it, making the potential of the science harder to take seriously.

The 1980 Hollywood movie Altered States, inspired by Lilly’s life, didn’t help. In it, a scientist experiments with drugs and sensory deprivation tanks, eventually going mad. It was an instant cult classic—and a huge pain for research. Thomas H. Fine, who started researching flotation in the ’70s, says that when he would submit an experiment for funding, he remembers the typical response he’d receive: “This is a hippie fad.”

Through the ’90s, Fine, who now does PTSD research at the University of Toledo College of Medicine, published studies on floating, including one where subjects were given eight 40-minute float sessions. After drawing their blood throughout the intervention, he found a 22% drop in their levels of the stress-signaling hormone cortisol.
Though it’s almost exclusively in small sample sizes, research from Fine and others has shown improvements in blood pressure, mood, pain, muscle tension and stress-related hormones from floating.

“I think floating has a strong role in good therapy for a number of disorders that we really struggle with in terms of effective therapies,” Fine says.
One of the only studies that suggests people with anxiety could gain therapeutic benefits from floating was published in 2006 in the International Journal of Stress Management. It found for a group of 70 people with stress-related pain, 12 float sessions reduced pain, stress, anxiety and depression while improving sleep and optimism. Those positive effects stuck around four months after treatment stopped.

Next year, Feinstein says he’ll repeat his current experiment with pre-float and post-float brain scans in people with PTSD. “Our expectation is that all these effects would be heightened in a population with clinical anxiety,” he says.

There’s a lot more to study, and in the future Feinstein wants to research how long the mellowing effects last after a float and how the brain changes over a sustained practice, when you float, say, a dozen times a month. But in spite of the research gaps Feinstein is trying to fill, the pricy practice of floating continues to gain disciples. An hour-long spa session will set you back anywhere from about $50-$100.

But to true floating devotees, like Michael Harding, it’s worth it. Harding bought a secondhand tank six months after his first float, installed it downstairs in his home and now floats every week for two or more hours at a time.

He’s tried to convince his army buddies with pain—both physical and mental—to hop in his tank. But so far, despite proof of Harding’s improvement, only one has taken him up on it.

This article originally appeared on time.com and was written by Mandy Oaklander

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