Daily Archives: December 7, 2018
Healing Yoga share
Update: 12/16/2018 I just learned that Healing Yoga is closing it’s doors. However, I have decided to leave this article up so that people know that there is such a thing as a yoga/therapy blend that can be very powerful treatment, especially for folks with PTSD. If you are reading this and know of another local resource that offers this type of treatment, please let me know. ~ Andrea
I’ve written a little about how yoga is an activity that has benefits for for everyone is beneficial for just about everyone. Healing Yoga (Douglassville, PA) takes it one step farther. Recommended to me by a colleague, the instructor, Dorian Abel is a licensed professional counselor who is skilled at incorporating her professional expertise into some of her yoga classes. However, even basic yoga classes should provide wonderful ways to develop skills that benefit a person’s mental well-being. As I write this segment (July ’16), in comparison to prices for yoga classes at other locations that I’ve looked at in the area, her prices are quite reasonable. The individual session fee is definitely more expensive but my suggestion would be, if you are considering that option but are concerned about the expense, it might be possible to do it once as a consultation and then work to incorporate what you learn into your yoga class experience, on your own.
Yoga share
Yoga is good for the body AND the mind. In addition to the obvious health benefits of regular exercise, a good yoga instructor creates an environment that promotes:
- A sense of serenity and acceptance for who you are in the moment.
- Guidance for how you can recognize when your “monkey mind” is swinging from thought to thought with the worries of the day and gently turn your attention back to the present moment and the feeling of your nourishing breath
- Feeling comfortable in your own skin.
- Increasing confidence as your strength and flexibility grows.
There is a TON of research that strongly supports using yoga to assist with the treatment of: anxiety (including Post Traumatic Stress Disorder); depression; ADHD; sleep problems; substance abuse, anger issues, and schizophrenia (when done in conjunction with medication). It’s an activity that can be modified for people of any age, from 2 to 102, and you can take with you anywhere you go! There are even some instructors that have training in both mental health therapy and yoga and can customize the work to really target anxiety and trauma specifically, teaching you how to be comfortable in your own body again.
Personally, my ability to use relaxation breathing as a skill in my daily life has never left me, even though I haven’t done a class for almost 10 years. One day, when my life gets a bit simpler, I fully intend to return to the benefits of a more regular, devoted yoga practice. In the meantime, I remind myself the words of wisdom of one of my former instructors, “Even one sun salutation is a yoga practice.”
Other Anxiety & Depression Links share
Individual Websites
Families for Depression Awareness
Skills That Are Helpful with Anxiety & Depression
- How to Use Mindfulness to Work With Difficult Emotions: A Six Step Process
- How to Mindfully Sit with Anxiety
Articles
Talking to Children About Terrorism and War (American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychology)
Khan Academy: SAT Prep & Academic Instructional Videos share
Stuck on math? Need help with Science? History confounding you? This website covers pretty much any topic except foreign language and writing your English essays. Khan Academy is a wonderful resource that provides Free SAT Prep (you can even link it to your College Boards account, to customize what you would benefit from working on) plus instructional videos on numerous academic topics.
I love the story behind this website. It all started when the founder, Salaman Khan, started to remotely tutor his cousin in math using online tools. Soon he discovered that the resources that he was putting online was helping a broader audience than just his family. Soon, Salaman Khan developed a vision of creating an online resource that could level the economic playing field by providing quality educational content no matter how rich or poor you are or whether you lived in an affluent or a poorer, remote area. He went on to develop a relationship with the College Boards, so now a student can link their PSAT or SAT scores to Khan and have access to tutorials and practice that is specific to their needs, without having to pay hundreds of dollars to a prep course.