Benefits of Yoga Therapy for Chronic Pain

The American College of Physicians now recommends yoga and other alternatives to prescription drugs for chronic low-back pain, saying that opioids and more invasive treatments should be used only after other approaches have failed. A number of other key organizations, including the Academic Consortium for Integrative Medicine & Health, agree and have laid out their position in resources such as Moving Beyond Medications.

SAM Sather and Jaclyn Sappah are certified yoga therapists through the International Association of Yoga Therapists (C-IAYT) https://www.iayt.org/default.aspx and have specialized training to help those with living with Chronis Pain. Pain that lasts 3 months or more—well beyond the time most injuries take to “heal”—is usually considered to be chronic. Chronic pain, including low-back pain, results from the interaction of many causes. This complexity makes it difficult to treat and is one factor behind the opioid crisis in the United States and elsewhere.

In 2017 NIH published a study noting that certain types of yoga practices can be as effective as physical therapy. https://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-research-matters/yoga-eases-moderate-severe-chronic-low-back-pain. Caution: be sure you work with a Yoga Therapist that has been trained in this area and also be sure that the yoga class is designed for this. Having a private session with a Yoga Therapist to work with you individually is a smart idea.

DOGWOOD STUDIO is Open for Individual Private and Small Group Private Sessions. 50% off your first session. WOW! At check out, choose the option for First Session discount. Let us know if you have any questions. sam@dogwoodstudioyoga.com

TWO new Mindfulness and Yoga Classes Starting April 3rd!

Therapeutic Yoga for YOUR Mind & Body

In this class we use mindfulness techniques and adapt yoga poses to your body promoting increased elasticity, strength, balance, decreased reactivity, and sense of wellbeing.

Learn a practice that safely and positively stresses your body's myofascial target areas while taking into account your unique body and history. This mindful practice promotes great insights as to how we hold tension, move (or do not move) our bodies, and how we relate to the sensations in the body.

This class includes mind-body activities to increase awareness of habits that impact our health, and provides techniques that can be applied in daily life to create opportunities to re-pattern our movements and support improved health.

Every Wednesday & Friday at 11am, Starting April 3rd,

At Balanced Movement in Carrboro http://balanced-movement.com/

304 W. Weaver St. Ste. 202

Carrboro, N.C. 27510

(919) 798-0555

(910) 431-5745 (SAM)

Senior Rate - $12 Regular Rate - $15

Options to Purchase 5 Class & 10 Class Passes

Mindful Yoga Classes Mondays 2:30 at Carrboro Yoga

Join me at Carrboro Yoga Company https://carolinayogacompany.com/carrboro/ starting March 4th 2018 in this mindful practice together that promotes great insights to your body and mind connection to turn reactivity to compassionate and balanced responses to the sensations in your body and mind. This class targets Myofascial Meridians in your body encouraging increased flexibility, strength, balance, and sense of well being.

What is Yoga Therapy?

https://yogatherapy.health/

The mission of yoga therapy is to adapt the practices of yoga to an individual’s health needs. Yoga therapy is designed to help empower the individual to progress toward greater health and well-being.

In yoga therapy, an individual meets with a yoga therapist with experience in designing a customized yoga practice for individuals with one or more health challenges that includes such things as yoga postures, meditation and breathing techniques to suit an individual’s desired needs. Each session is designed based on the individual’s abilities, goals and needs to help progress toward improved health and well-being. 

No previous yoga experience is required. The individual learns to explore the connections between the mind and body, and may realize benefits in breathing, flexibility, balance, strength, and the ability to decrease reactivity and better manage life circumstances.

Yoga therapy is done on a one to one basis or in a small group of individuals with like conditions and needs, e.g., a physical condition such as lung, heart or kidney disease, diabetes, chronic pain, depression, or anxiety. Yoga techniques are used to support the individual’s improved awareness to promote less reactivity and obtain tools to support relief of symptoms and/or to improve one’s function in the activities of daily living.

In yoga therapy, the individual client’s needs are the focus rather than teaching yoga methodology or a particular pose. The yoga therapist, through the use of their trained skills, develops a plan with the client and the yoga session or sessions unfold from there. Each yoga therapist understands why the client has come for the yoga therapy session and together with the client, a plan is developed to support the client’s needs.

Knowing what is safe and actually being able to teach it is not the same! Choose wisely.

Yoga can be very good for healthy aging. For example those living with Osteoporosis. Yoga can promote balance, decreased tension in the body, repatterning of risky social posture and movements that are risky to those living with the silent disease of osteoporosis. But there are some yoga poses and activities that are risky for students living with Osteoporosis, example loaded spinal flexion. Therefore, yoga teachers must be educated on what poses and movements to avoid or modify for these participants.

I have been working with and training yoga teachers for many years about how to teach to seniors. But educating is not enough. It is not easy to apply this knowledge! It takes a lot of practice and deeper critical reasoning because of all the poses and variations there are in asana (yoga poses). Many teacher training programs in the US teach to the pose and not to the purpose of the pose and how to modify it to anybody (I mean Any Body!).

Choose your yoga teacher carefully. The practice of yoga can cultivate this wonderful wisdom and freedom for students. One of these freedoms is the understanding of the patterns in my body and mind that do not support health and happiness. For those with Osteoporosis sitting on the floor with a flexed spine is risky, even more so when we add a twist.

There is a lot of inaccurate info on the internet. I just did a search for yoga and Osteoporosis images and there is a posted for the top 10 poses and MANY are contraindicated for osteoporosis mainly because the matority of people performing the poses do so with spinal flexion, example revolved triangle pose. The flexible model can do the pose, but not the majority of the students. Some of this is due to the students skeletal variation and some due to the students elasticity. It is better to offer a pose that does not load the spine and build the awareness of the spine.

Here is a link to a recent article from the Mayo Clinic about yoga and Osteoporosis. https://www.mayoclinicproceedings.org/article/S0025-6196(18)30940-6/abstract

Hope you can attend one of my private or group sessions and learn more.

Kindly,

SAM

sam@dogwoodstudioyoga.com