Yoga as Therapy
Reduce your pain and stress and live well.
Maybe you feel as if your body has become the enemy. Either you do too much and feel miserable. Or you do too little and withdraw from activities you love. Perhaps you're feeling anxious and limited by your pain.
If you’ve suffered from pain for over three months, you might be suffering from persistent or chronic pain. With persistent pain, the injury may have healed, but the nervous system has become hyperactive and excitable. This hyperactivity is called Central Sensitization. With Central Sensitization, your pain threshold can drop dramatically, so you feel pain more easily.*
Because of the plasticity of the brain and nervous system (neuroplasticity), Central Sensitization can be changed.
Therapeutic yoga is the natural next step in pain and stress relief.
It can be a lonely, and frustrating road living with persistent pain. Your pain is personal to you. And very real. Here you'll learn valuable skills to calm, relax, and relieve pain quickly. The movements are gentle and the practice is tailored to your needs and abilities.
As with everything in life, you get out of it what you put into it.
Practising consistently to feel the benefits is important. This may mean you take just a few minutes several times a day to consciously breathe and move within the guidelines of your practise. Setting goals and perseverance are important, because you're changing your nervous system to feel more vitality and less pain. This change thrives on the slow and subtle methods that therapeutic yoga offers.
With a personal therapeutic yoga program, you can strengthen and learn ways of breathing and moving to reduce pain and increase energy.
Yoga as therapy can help
It's a gentle way to feel good again.
Pain doesn't always show up where the problem is in your tissues. If you've been stretching and moving - or are afraid to move - without relief, therapeutic yoga can help you
But ultimately, it’s about learning how to teach your body, mind and spirit to remember what it already knows: how to heal.
With your own personal and tailored program, you'll discover
1. How you can use your breath for better focus, and to relax and feel calmer - and relieve pain and tension.
2. How to stand, sit and walk to reduce your pain.
3. How a basic understanding of the science of pain can help you get out of pain faster. (No complicated scientific jargon involved!)
4. Gentle movement that's right for your body. Uncover patterns of movement that may be keeping you 'stuck' in pain.
5. Experience the bliss of deep relaxation, and how it helps to relax, restore and heal.
6. A simple technique to calm your busy mind.
7. Learn three practices for reducing Central Sensitization and restoring your pain threshold to pre-injury levels.
You'll discover how improving your structural alignment, and practising breathing, meditation, gentle movement and deep relaxation can relieve pain, stress and emotional tension.
Your personal therapeutic yoga program includes
Yoga as therapy is that step that's small enough not to overwhelm you, and big enough to change your life. It’s healing therapy for the body, mind and spirit.
Feeling dragged out, stressed out, listless, cranky with pain or lost your inner spark? Find your joie de vivre again with therapeutic yoga and proven mindfulness techniques, so you can breathe easily, move freely, and live joyfully.
"By the end of the session I felt wonderful, no tension, no stiffness, no pain." ~ Rosemary B.
Here are a few more personal stories .
Change is possible. And it's easier than you may imagine.
Feel less pain. Because you want to live well again.
Tight hips, back or knee pain? Here's a gentle practice to explore.
Book your session today - call me at 416-859-0585 or email info@yogaspiritus.com.
What to wear
Comfortable, stretchy clothes. Yoga is usually practised in bare feet. Practise on a yoga mat or other non-skid surface.
*Yoga Therapy does not diagnose. Please consult with your trusted health practitioner if you have any concerns about your health.
- Are you suffering from pain or stress that has persisted for months or years?
- Have you hit a brick wall with your pain care?
- Are you frustrated and feel as if you don't know where to turn next?
Maybe you feel as if your body has become the enemy. Either you do too much and feel miserable. Or you do too little and withdraw from activities you love. Perhaps you're feeling anxious and limited by your pain.
If you’ve suffered from pain for over three months, you might be suffering from persistent or chronic pain. With persistent pain, the injury may have healed, but the nervous system has become hyperactive and excitable. This hyperactivity is called Central Sensitization. With Central Sensitization, your pain threshold can drop dramatically, so you feel pain more easily.*
Because of the plasticity of the brain and nervous system (neuroplasticity), Central Sensitization can be changed.
Therapeutic yoga is the natural next step in pain and stress relief.
It can be a lonely, and frustrating road living with persistent pain. Your pain is personal to you. And very real. Here you'll learn valuable skills to calm, relax, and relieve pain quickly. The movements are gentle and the practice is tailored to your needs and abilities.
As with everything in life, you get out of it what you put into it.
Practising consistently to feel the benefits is important. This may mean you take just a few minutes several times a day to consciously breathe and move within the guidelines of your practise. Setting goals and perseverance are important, because you're changing your nervous system to feel more vitality and less pain. This change thrives on the slow and subtle methods that therapeutic yoga offers.
With a personal therapeutic yoga program, you can strengthen and learn ways of breathing and moving to reduce pain and increase energy.
Yoga as therapy can help
- Low back pain
- Neck pain
- Frozen shoulder (adhesive capsulitis)
- Hip pain
- Plantar fasciitis
- Post-concussion syndrome
- Fibromyalgia
- CRPS (Complex Regional Pain Syndrome)
- Anxiety or depression
- And many more types of pain and stress-related illness.
It's a gentle way to feel good again.
Pain doesn't always show up where the problem is in your tissues. If you've been stretching and moving - or are afraid to move - without relief, therapeutic yoga can help you
- Set goals
- Understand your movement patterns
- Establish a practice that will serve you in changing your pain.
But ultimately, it’s about learning how to teach your body, mind and spirit to remember what it already knows: how to heal.
With your own personal and tailored program, you'll discover
1. How you can use your breath for better focus, and to relax and feel calmer - and relieve pain and tension.
2. How to stand, sit and walk to reduce your pain.
3. How a basic understanding of the science of pain can help you get out of pain faster. (No complicated scientific jargon involved!)
4. Gentle movement that's right for your body. Uncover patterns of movement that may be keeping you 'stuck' in pain.
5. Experience the bliss of deep relaxation, and how it helps to relax, restore and heal.
6. A simple technique to calm your busy mind.
7. Learn three practices for reducing Central Sensitization and restoring your pain threshold to pre-injury levels.
You'll discover how improving your structural alignment, and practising breathing, meditation, gentle movement and deep relaxation can relieve pain, stress and emotional tension.
Your personal therapeutic yoga program includes
- A 1-hour session to explore your physical challenges, and any other challenges you'd like to mention - e.g., anxiety, depression or stress. You’ll uncover hidden movement patterns that can keep you “stuck” in pain. Clients will often feel a lessening of pain during the very first session.
- A personal home therapeutic program for your daily use.
- Subsequent 1-hour sessions are available as individual sessions.
Yoga as therapy is that step that's small enough not to overwhelm you, and big enough to change your life. It’s healing therapy for the body, mind and spirit.
Feeling dragged out, stressed out, listless, cranky with pain or lost your inner spark? Find your joie de vivre again with therapeutic yoga and proven mindfulness techniques, so you can breathe easily, move freely, and live joyfully.
"By the end of the session I felt wonderful, no tension, no stiffness, no pain." ~ Rosemary B.
Here are a few more personal stories .
Change is possible. And it's easier than you may imagine.
Feel less pain. Because you want to live well again.
Tight hips, back or knee pain? Here's a gentle practice to explore.
- Lie comfortably on your back, with your pelvis level and legs up the wall.
- Let the legbones be really heavy in the pelvis.
- Slowly bring one ankle over the other, and allow that leg to slide down the opposite shin on its own, no forcing.
- Have your hands on your hip bones to see if pelvis is shifting or rocking. Wherever the ankle lands (above or below the knee), you then begin to press the bent knee/thigh towards the wall, and let it come back, like a gate swinging on a hinge.
- Soften. If the pelvis shifts or rocks, you've gone too far. If the jaw or upper chest or breath is tight, you've gone too far. The breath should be soft and relaxed, body open, attitude of curiosity about the movement rather than trying to "get" somewhere. This encourages pure movement in the hip, rather than getting into compensating movements through the pelvis/back/knee. It's important to do without forcing anything, to allow the hip to soften and open, and build that movement into the body/nervous system. Forcing may incline the hip to tighten more.
- When you're ready, slide the leg back up, uncross the ankles, and switch legs.
- Notice how you feel.
Book your session today - call me at 416-859-0585 or email info@yogaspiritus.com.
What to wear
Comfortable, stretchy clothes. Yoga is usually practised in bare feet. Practise on a yoga mat or other non-skid surface.
*Yoga Therapy does not diagnose. Please consult with your trusted health practitioner if you have any concerns about your health.
Hear the Experts on Pain Science
“Knowledge produces powerful changes in your nervous system.
Understanding pain neurophysiology is linked with less pain, improved movement and decreased perception of disability.” ~ Neil Pearson, Understanding Pain
Understanding pain neurophysiology is linked with less pain, improved movement and decreased perception of disability.” ~ Neil Pearson, Understanding Pain
Here's a great article by Kristine Kaoverii Weber on why practising yoga as "Innercise" rather than "Exercise" is a good thing.
Neil Pearson, Physiotherapist, Yoga Therapist, Adjunct Professor at UBC and author of Understand Pain, Live Well Again, speaks with Antonio Sausys, Somatic Psychotherapist, Yoga Therapist and author of Yoga for Grief Relief, on managing chronic pain with yoga.
Dr. Dooley demonstrates the importance of effective breathing for the internal organs.
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Professor Lorimer Moseley, Chair in Physiotherapy and Professor of Clinical Neurosciences at the University of South Australia, says we need to reframe our understanding of pain.
Contact me to arrange a free 15-minute consultation.
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