What is Yoga Therapy?
Essentially, yoga therapy is the application of yoga practices to alleviate physical and mental health conditions with the view of promoting self-care and encouraging overall well-being. Whilst the practice of yoga in general aims to cultivate the body and mind and hence has the potential for therapeutic effects, in yoga therapy we are using specific yoga practices and their known benefits to help alleviate or improvement mental and physical ailments.
The modern term, ‘Yoga therapy’ was coined by Swami Kuvalyananda in the 1920s who believed the changes it would be possible to measure the physical and physiological changes that occurred through yoga practice. His passion brought foreigner researchers to India to study yoga’s effect, a magazine, an entire yoga institution and a new field. Swami Kuvalyananda made it possible to start applying the specific effects of yoga to medical conditions.
How is Yoga Therapy Used?
Yoga therapy aligns the unique and precise health needs of the client with yoga practices which the yoga tradition and also medical science find to have particular curative effects. For example, with lower back pain, there are very specific yoga positions and postures for strengthening and supporting the back and even soothing the symptoms of a herniated disc. Likewise, with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), there are gentle, specialised ways of regulating the nervous system and fostering the return of an awareness of the body. In Autism Spectrum Disorders, specific yoga postures can be used to reduce heightened sensory arousal and promote emotional regulation.
Yoga Therapy can be used to treat:
Mental Health Conditions
- Stress
- Depression
- Anxiety
- PTSD
- Schizophrenia
- ADHD
- Eating Disorders
- Addiction
- Autism
- Post-Natal Depression
Physical Conditions
- Back Pain
- Musculaskeletal problems
- Diabetes
- High Blood Pressure
- Parkinson’s
- Asthma
- COPD
- Cancer
- HIV