Clinical Yoga Therapy
What is Yoga Therapy and how can it help me?
Yoga Therapy is “the professional application of the principles and practices of yoga to promote health and well-being within a therapeutic relationship that includes personalized assessment, goal-setting, lifestyle management, and yoga practices for individuals or small groups”. International Association of Yoga Therapists
Yoga Therapy can help with the following:
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Whether steady or intermittent, pain is considered chronic when it lasts more than 3 months. Approximately 20% of Canadians or 1 in 5, report some form of chronic pain and often claim that pain significantly interferes with work, school, family and community activities. Research shows that even 30 min of education about the nature of pain significantly reduces pain. Yoga Therapy develops mind-body awareness specific to the individual and encourages ways to learn about their pain and create positive intervention and management strategies.
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Neurological conditions are those conditions that affect the brain and nervous system. These include; Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI), seizures, multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s, and other auto-immune conditions. Intervention with Yoga Therapy is about using yoga applications and self-care techniques to improve quality of life for the person living with any of these conditions and improve mental, physical and emotional state of well-being.
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Sometimes major illnesses such as cancer, diabetes, heart disease, infiltrate our lives and take a heavy toll over our lives. Living with such conditions will increase stress levels and likely exacerbate the impact on overall health; physically, mentally and emotionally. If we are unable to cure the disease, Yoga Therapy allows an individual to manage their physical, mental and emotional well-being which may positively affect management of the condition and even improve the recovery process where applicable.
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Many people are affected with life events, circumstances, pressures and trauma which result in a variety of levels of anxiety, depression, accumulated stress and PTSD. Stress and trauma are subjective and the way it is experienced and perceived is unique from person to person.
While stress levels can be improved and managed with a regular yoga practice, Yoga Therapy takes an individual’s healing and management of their mental health a step further. It is about the unique integration of tools such as breath, mantra and more, for the best outcome for an individual in processing emotion, balancing moods and regulating the nervous system.
Intro to Yoga Therapy
As yoga therapy differs from yoga because of its individual nature to a person and a specific condition, it requires a physical assessment and a health inventory. Once that is complete, it makes sense to move forward with programming based on those findings. Intro to Yoga Therapy includes an initial appointment (a Health History form filled out ahead of time, a physical assessment) with at least two follow up sessions.
