Who Can Benefit from Yoga Therapy?

The benefits of Yoga Therapy are available to almost anyone with a desire for change in their life (read more about what yoga therapy is). Yoga therapists are trained to individualize practices for each client, giving them the flexibility to create sessions that will benefit a wide range of medical conditions and multiple conditions at the same time. Clients with any range of yoga experience can benefit from practices that may include asana (yoga postures), pranayama (breathing techniques), meditation techniques, ritual, chanting and others. Breathing Deeply yoga therapists are trained to choose practices carefully and modify them to be the most useful for their clients to progress toward improved health, well-being, and address specific health concerns that they have. 

What types of conditions can be helped by a Yoga Therapy approach?

One of the advantages of working with a yoga therapist is the wide range of conditions that can be supported or relieved and the idea that multiple conditions can be addressed at the same time. Issues may have their roots in one aspect of a person  – physical, mental, emotional, or spiritual – but manifest in multiple areas of health. The Breathing Deeply approach considers all aspects of a person. Because many of the yoga practices and their known benefits can affect a person across layers, they can be very effective in addressing multiple mental and physical ailments and conditions at once. Yoga therapy is also a self-empowering process where yoga therapists can design a personalized and ever evolving yoga practice specific to the needs of each client.

Many physical and mental health conditions may find help with individualized practices:

• Physical pain such as chronic low back pain and neck pain
• Carpal tunnel syndrome, arthritis symptoms
• Fatigue, overwhelm, autoimmune disease, multiple sclerosis
• Insomnia, improved sleep quality
• Chronic inflammation, better blood circulation 
• Addressing factors contributing to heart disease such as high blood pressure
• Mental health issues such as Anxiety, depression, grief, trauma, post traumatic stress disorder
• Support for cancer or after surgery
• Lower blood pressure and pulse rate
• Habit change, weight loss, addiction, stress management and reduction
• Sense of purpose, ability to connect deeply, body awareness, spiritual well being

What factors might contribute to a client’s success?

A desire to change is the starting point for healing. That might mean strengthening or stretching different muscle groups that relieve a physical problem, breathing exercises to reduce stress, or developing a new spiritual context for accepting a condition and promoting emotional regulation, or anything in between. A client’s willingness to try new practices that feel safe and be in communication with their therapist will allow the therapist to guide and educate the client into greater mental and physical health. Breathing Deeply therapists are trained in teaching clients new practices that they feel will be most useful AND helping the client find ways to fit them into their lives. Practices may feel good right away (or may be mentally challenging) but they all take time to work in a deep way. Yoga therapy is most effective with consistency and time, the commitment is part of the journey. 

Does it matter how much yoga experience a client has?

It doesn’t! Clients range from people that have never tried any kind of yoga to professional yoga practitioners with years of experience. Two of the fundamentals for Breathing Deeply yoga therapists are being in relationship with the client and providing education with context. This means that the therapist co-creates the sequence of individualized practices with the client, taking into account their experience and comfort levels. The yoga therapist and client will always work together to find practices that feel simple, safe and effective. There are a wide range of tools available to the yoga therapist, many options and ways to modify practices to make sense for the client. Yoga therapy has a wide range of physical and mental health benefits to explore for many people. The uniqueness of a yoga practice is able to meet the beautiful original needs of so many different types of clients. If trying a yoga therapy session or becoming a yoga therapist is of interest to you, please see our offerings at Breathing Deeply Yoga Therapy.