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Be at Ease in Your Body, Mind and Relationships
Therapeutic Yoga and Meditation
Why yoga and meditation
are part of my counseling work
I’ve seen over and again how yoga and meditation help my clients better manage anxiety, depression, stress, Attention Deficit and other challenges in a new way. More research studies are appearing which support the effectiveness of yoga and meditation for boosting a variety of wellness factors in both brain and body. The health benefits range from improved sleep, reduced anxiety and depression, reduced inflammation and many others. Some measures have shown a simple yoga-based breath practice to induce more optimal cardiac patterns known as Heart Rate Variability (HRV), which is a helpful flexibility in the intervals at which the heart beats. HRV has been found in studies to be associated with many aspects of better health, mentally and physically.
Yoga offers many simple, non-athletic practices done in a basic seated or standing position intended to help people be present, confident, energized and relaxed. I sometimes call this Office-Based Yoga and Meditation or OBYM. Clients learn to adjust body posture, muscle tension, breathing pattern and mental focus in ways that support calm, balance, and clarity of mind. Another goal and result of these practices is resilience- the capacity to better ride life’s ups and downs.
Breath Practices to Regulate the Nervous System...
How we hold the body, how we think, and how we breathe is something we can never perfectly control, but we can learn to guide it and shape into patterns that work much better for us. The breath is one of the key ways to do this. There are literally thousands of breath practices in Yoga that effect the Central Nervous System.
Through structured breathing, clients learn to better focus, interrupt reactions, and steady themselves. The breath is free, organic and always with you- quite an amazing resource once we learn to tap it.
OBYM guides students to be more in control of mind, emotions and nervous system. It’s about living more fully alive, with less struggle internally with what we feel. I use it in therapy in a very here-and-now way, because it helps to cultivate patterns of well-being in the present, no matter how difficult things have been in the past. It’s a form of Positive Psychology, because it’s about learning how to cultivate positive patterns in the present moment.
What the Research Says...
Research that supports the efficacy of Yoga as a mental health tool is growing. A number of quality Yoga studies have shown good results with a range of populations, from high school students to elite musicians.
What the Research Says...
Meditation has its roots in the quest to be free of mental suffering — like yoga. Meditation is a simple, efficient and deceptively powerful tool that helps clients better understand the mind’s patterns, and how to cultivate more beneficial ones.
Other Areas of Specialty:
Click the links below to learn about other key areas of my practice: