Yoga therapy
What is yoga therapy?
Yoga therapy is yoga used to ease and heal health problems. Yoga therapy are asanas (postures used for stretching exercises), pranayama (breathing exercises), relaxation in savasana (lying down), and meditation.
Practising yoga in classes can improve general wellbeing and improve our ability to live full and healthy life. Yoga therapy on the other hand is needed for specific health issues. Yoga therapy is more effective than general when specific advanced health problems are present. It is also safer because therapist is 100% pesent with a patient.
How does yoga therapy work?
Yoga therapy works by following one principle:
Our body is nothing but an essence of intelligence. It has enormous intelligence to understand it and has enormous recuperative power (in the form of prāna) to heal itself, when it gets into any problem. We get into diseases, if this prāna is blocked. Block can happen because of physical, physiological, psychological and deeper reasons.
Yoga therapy has its own anatomy, physiology, psychology, examination methodology, and an unlimited resources or tools or techniques in the form of āsana, prānāyāma, chanting, meditation etc. Using them appropriately, the blocks are removed. Once the blocks are removed, the recuperative power in the form of Prānā enters the diseased parts and healing happens.
We work in three steps:
- Symptomatic relief.
- Causative cure.
- Strengthening of the whole constitution, so that the person need not depend on any other person or system for his healthy and fruitful living.
Will yoga therapy work for me?
Most probably it will. Yoga is a collection of many practices that can be used for healing. When they are selected and used by educated and trained therapist yoga therapy will help.
We adopt yoga postures and practices to patient.
What makes yoga therapy so effective in the treatment of mental illness?
The underlying cause for most of the mental illnesses is weakness in the mind of the sufferers. The external circumstances pose a big threat to them. They begin to think that they can not get over or win over these circumstances. This feeling causes changes at every level of his constitution (physical, physiological, psychological and deeper personally).
Yoga therapy works in strengthening of the whole constitution comprehensively. As the strengthening is happening at every level of the constitution, the individual feels different. Slowly, the external threat becomes smaller than his present stature. With his better stature, he is able to perceive, understand and analyse differently and he is able to tackle the situation most effectively, without getting into stress.
For people who suffer severely from mental illness, does yoga therapy work best as a long term answer as oppose to antidepressants or other mood stimulants?
Anti-depressants, mood stimulants are required only during acute, difficult periods. Along with these medications, yoga therapy should be introduced. Slowly, with good connection with the teacher, his whole constitution undergoes strengthening. When the person becomes stronger and stronger, he will not react to the external threats in the same way. The chemical composition of his constitution is changed. He will require smaller and smaller doses of these medications and they can even in due course come out of the medications completely.