Are You Looking for More Ways to
Improve Your Emotional Health?
Traditional psychotherapy methods are a great way to help improve your well-being and treat mental illness. But many methods lack the comprehensive mind-body awareness that you can get from therapeutic yoga. Yoga in a therapeutic setting is different from mainstream yoga in that it moves away from the goal of improving physical fitness, core strength, or flexibility, and solely aims at enhancing your emotional well-being. You learn how to connect your mind with your body so you can effectively cope with typical daily stressors or even major crises.
What is Therapeutic Yoga?
Who Can Benefit from Therapeutic Yoga?
Anyone can benefit from incorporating therapeutic yoga into their regular self-care regimen or mental health treatment. If you feel stressed or overwhelmed, need to improve your relationships, or want to find inner peace and serenity, therapeutic yoga helps you learn how to read your bodily cues and sensations to improve your self-confidence, self-acceptance, and self-forgiveness.
If you are struggling with mental illness, such as anxiety, depression, bipolar disorder, or substance use/abuse, therapeutic yoga can help you react to conflict or challenges with stability and purpose instead of impulsivity. You’ll gain the ability to choose to listen to your body instead of the internal chatter in your head.
How Can Yoga Help You Emotionally Heal?
Yoga, in general, has been linked to lowering cortisol levels in the body, which helps reduce stress, improve memory and libido, and regulate hormones, mood, sleep, and appetite. It can also help alleviate stress, anxiety, and depression.
Therapeutic yoga practice for emotional healing can help you with grounding, which means achieving emotional stability or balance. By using specific postures and breath work, yoga in a therapeutic setting empowers you to strengthen your mind-body connection and build self-trust, allowing you to channel out internal chatter or chaos that is often difficult to tune out.
We gain the ability to see a broader picture of ourselves in the present moment, rather than dwelling on the past or feeling anxious about the future. Grounding can help you increase feelings of gratitude, humility, self-love, self-empowerment, self-trust, and self-confidence, especially through regularly practiced therapeutic yoga.
How is Yoga Incorporated into
Regular Psychotherapy?
If you are looking to improve your emotional well-being, treat mental illness, or combat substance use/abuse, yoga in a therapeutic setting can help. Therapeutic yoga should be used as a supplemental treatment alongside traditional mental health therapy, which can include modalities such as cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), motivational interviewing, or solution-focused therapy.
During the session, your certified yoga instructor (who is also a licensed psychologist at Bayview Therapy will be practicing right alongside you, guiding you through each posture to help you understand what works for you and what doesn’t. Together you’ll focus on emphasizing your strengths and emotional stability.
Whether you’ve never practiced yoga before or you’re an experienced yogi, therapeutic yoga can help anyone achieve an overall sense of emotional wellness.
Is Therapeutic Yoga Right for You?
Therapeutic yoga is an individualized practice tailored to each individual client depending on your emotional needs, diagnosis, and level of functioning, regardless of your physical ability, body type, strength, flexibility, or previous experience with yoga. You might be thinking, “I’ve never done yoga. What if I’m bad at it?” “Will my therapist be mad at me if I don’t achieve my goals?” or “I’m worried that I won’t ‘get it’.”
When you come to therapeutic yoga, you'll be given full one-on-one attention and be encouraged to move at your own pace. What do you hope to get out of practicing therapeutic yoga? Your therapist will never place expectations on you. There’s no right or wrong when it comes to yoga. The only thing asked of you when you come in is to have to open mind and willingness to experience a life-changing yoga practice.
Empowered to Go Through Life
with a Mind-Body Connection
Are you ready to deepen your mind-body connection? Therapeutic yoga for emotional healing enhances your own sense of self-empowerment as you begin to trust your own inner wisdom and knowledge.
You’ll be able to think about yourself, the environment, and the relationship between the two in new ways which will improve your self-care and self-worth, creating positive change in your life.
As you deepen your intuition and inner trust, you’ll become more grounded and emotionally stable not only during sessions, but in your personal life off the mat.
Start Making Healthy Choices Today!
Start making healthy life choices that nurture your mind, body, and soul. Call 954-391-5305 to learn how therapeutic yoga can improve your emotional well-being.
Dr. Heather Violante is a licensed psychologist and founder of Serenity Lane Psychological Services. She is a certified vinyasa yoga instructor at the 500 hour level, a certified Yoga of 12-Step Recovery Leader (Y12SR), and is additionally certified in using therapeutic yoga techniques for emotional healing at the 100 hour level.
For more information about Dr. Heather Violante, Psy. D., visit her website.