What is Yoga Therapy? The How, Where and Why of Yoga Therapy Sessions / LauraGyoga C-IAYT

Transcript

hi i'm laura thank you so much for your interest in yoga therapy today i'd like to explain a little bit more about what yoga therapy is and what to expect from your yoga therapy sessions yoga therapy is a growing field that is working to bridge the gap between the field of wellness and the profession of health care so yoga therapy works on the very specific professional application of all the varied tools of yoga to the individual to help them bring about healing or self-development the tools of yoga practice are varied we have what we call the eight limbs of yoga and that includes things like postures breath work concentration techniques learning how to meditate effectively and it also includes the philosophy behind yoga there is a very deep rich philosophy that comes from the practice of yoga and how it impacts your day-to-day life so when we study the philosophy behind yoga it can be a really powerful way to gain perspective on your life and to help you make decisions when you are trying to move forward or heal from something [Music] the next question that people usually ask me is what is the yoga therapy session going to look like and the reason that yoga therapy is a little bit different is that the first session is going to be an evaluation just like if you went to a doctor's appointment they would take in information you would have to fill in an intake form so they know your health history and they have a basis from which to look at you we do the same thing in yoga therapy you're going to have an intake form that's going to ask you some detailed information about your health history and your current habits and some of the things that you might be struggling with currently that you want to work on and then when we do the evaluation we're going to go over that paperwork i'm going to look at how you're moving i'm going to look at how you're breathing and we're going to just have a conversation about your overall health so that i can start to put together that really overall holistic picture of how you're doing right now and where you want to move to in the future once that evaluation is complete then we start the regular sessions and those sessions are going to be completely dependent on what you want to work on sometimes the sessions might just look very similar to a regular yoga class where we are putting together a sequence of poses and breath work so that you have a home practice that you can do on a regular basis sometimes we might talk about different aspects of yoga philosophy and how that could give you a different perspective on some of the challenges that you are currently facing in your life so sometimes it's movement sometimes we are talking and discussing things it is a hundred percent based on what you feel like you need that day [Music] now that you understand a little bit more about what yoga therapy is let's talk about the how and the where of getting into a yoga therapy session these sessions can be done in person it's usually a one-on-one session that can be done at a yoga studio or at a therapy clinic and now we also have the option to utilize technology so you can do yoga therapy sessions virtually through zoom which really improves the accessibility and the flexibility of being able to get these type of services one great benefit of doing your sessions virtually is that it is easy to record your session and you can use that practice video to support your home program you can just press play and follow along the other question people usually ask is how they pay for yoga therapy sessions as of right now yoga therapy is not covered by insurance so just like seeing a personal trainer yoga therapy sessions are an out-of-pocket investment for your health after each session i will send you a follow-up email and that's going to cover all of the topics that we discussed during the yoga therapy session it's going to have supporting information to help you carry over the techniques and the practices that we talked about and i will often send links for videos that you can use for your home practice the next question that i get a lot is why would you do yoga therapy instead of just going to a yoga studio or walking into a class at the gym and the reasoning behind that is when you work with a yoga therapist you are getting in front of somebody who has a much more extensive education we get a lot more training in understanding anatomy understanding the body systems we learn a lot more about injuries and conditions because yoga therapy is so much more about the healing process where a regular yoga teacher might have about 200 hours of training to get certified a yoga therapist will usually have over a thousand hours of really specific training to work with individuals one-on-one and create those very personalized plans for that individual there are two factors overall that i've seen to be the most effective components in yoga therapy the first one is the process of self-study or self-awareness it is amazing how easy it is to make it to adulthood and not have a good understanding of who we are or why we do certain things so yoga has very effective tools to help us look at ourselves and start to gain some understanding and then from that place of understanding we get to work on the next step which is self-regulation once we know how we are feeling we can start to make choices that are going to impact the state of our nervous system and the way that we engage with our day-to-day life so yoga therapy shows us that if we are feeling frazzled or overwhelmed we can use certain postures or certain breathing techniques to shift back into that state of being calm and being focused one of the most powerful things about yoga therapy is that it is a very holistic system when we're working with somebody in the context of yoga therapy we are not just looking at one injury or one condition we want to understand the person as a whole on all of their different layers of being [Music] yoga therapy is all about the carry over so when you go to a group class you get a wonderful one-hour experience and you probably walk out the door feeling better hopefully when you do a yoga therapy session it's going to end with a little bit of homework and this is the most important thing because when we take what we learn in our yoga practice off of our mat and we start to apply it into our daily life and we really use the techniques of yoga in everything that we do that's when we start to see the tremendous healing benefits of yoga start to permeate our life when you are looking for a yoga therapist it is important to understand their education and their specialties because we all have different specialties you want to try to find somebody who is a certified yoga therapist usually through the international association of yoga therapists and then it's good to read their bio and get an understanding of their education so my background is in occupational therapy i did my undergraduate in psychology and then i got my master's degree in occupational therapy and if you've never heard of occupational therapy you are not alone basically the way i describe occupational therapy is we are a part of the rehab team and on one side you have physical therapy on the other side you have speech therapy and ots are the glue in the middle that holds the rehab team together because we overlap a little bit with some of the other professions so i see yoga therapy and occupational therapy is being very similar in the way that they pull in a very holistic view of the person that we are working with [Music] now i'd like to share with people that i came to yoga from a background as a competitive athlete i played all sorts of sports in my childhood through high school and when i came to try yoga for the first time i actually really didn't like it because it was so different from that high pressure competitive atmosphere that i had been in my whole life up to that point but for some reason i tried it again and then i tried it again and i didn't know why at that point but i kept finding myself being drawn back i started to understand that for the first time in my life yoga helped me to feel relaxed and that was a novel experience for me at that time perhaps something that i had never really truly felt completely relaxed and i wanted more of that and that's what drew me back to yoga so if you're somebody who maybe feels that yoga is this foreign thing that is going to be a little bit strange you are not alone because i was definitely there and that was almost 20 years ago for me at this point and the way that my practice has grown and evolved and supported me throughout my life i truly could not picture my life right now without having the tools of yoga and that is why i feel so strongly about sharing these with other people if you are looking for something to help you through your healing process to help you through the process of just getting to know yourself better and evolving into that greatest version of yourself then yoga therapy is going to be a tremendously helpful and powerful tool in your life if this sounds like something that could be helpful to you and you want more information feel free to reach out to me through my email laraji yoga aol.com or through instagram laraji yoga and if you would like to schedule an appointment and an evaluation let me know and we will start to get things in motion so that you can start your yoga therapy practice [Music] [Music] you