How yoga therapy can support your health and wellbeing

Yoga therapist Bene Spoelders explains how yoga therapy can help support your health and wellbeing

While many people have tried yoga at some point in their life, few know about yoga therapy, and how supportive it can be when you are struggling with a health challenge. Yoga therapy offers a personalised yoga practice, designed to benefit specific health conditions. It is inherently a whole-person approach, promoting physical, mental and emotional wellness. By using movement, relaxation, breathing and other yoga tools, yoga therapy actively seeks to support an individual’s journey to greater health and wellbeing. This article discusses several reasons why yoga therapy could be right for you.

What is yoga therapy

Yoga therapy is the application of yoga tools to assist the health and wellbeing of an individual or small group. It offers a framework in which the therapists combine their knowledge of anatomy and physiology with the techniques of yoga. As a unique combination of yoga movements, breathing techniques and relaxation practises, yoga therapy benefits both body and mind. It is well placed to accompany conventional medical care, such as physiotherapy or cancer treatment. In extensive research, yoga therapy has been found to make a positive difference for people with chronic pain, stress, cardiovascular disease, digestive issues and more.

Usually yoga teachers by background, yoga therapists are health professionals who have received additional training of a minimum of 600 hours over two years. This training teaches them how to select yoga tools that are evidence-informed, safe and supportive for people with different medical conditions. The quality of training and continuous professional development is overseen by organisations such as the British Council of Yoga Therapy and the International Association of Yoga Therapists.

Can yoga therapy be taught in groups?

Yoga therapy can be taught to groups, to a certain extent. For instance, the class can focus on people who are recovering from cancer treatment. However, it will not be tailored to them as individuals who also come, for example, with a frozen shoulder or a painful knee. Nevertheless, the social aspect of the group format can be valuable.

Five reasons to choose yoga therapy

Here are five reasons why you may want to consider yoga therapy. As you will notice, these reasons do not all include illness or pain.

1. You would like support with a health challenge

Carefully selected yoga practises can help you manage a particular health challenge. For example, during or after cancer treatments, gentle yoga movements can enhance mobility and strength, relaxation techniques can restore energy levels, and breathing practises are calming and centring.

There has been extensive research on how yoga therapy can have positive outcomes for people with depression, back pain, diabetes, heart disease and cancer, to name but a few. As a relatively cheap and safe practice, yoga therapy is an important companion to conventional healthcare. It considers the physical symptoms but also addresses emotional and mental dimensions, thus looking at a person holistically.

Finally, a yoga therapist will teach you a tailored yoga programme and instruct how to continue the programme at home. This encourages you to take your health into your own hands.

2. You would like a yoga programme that fits your health needs and your schedule

You don’t have to be in chronic pain or have an acute illness to benefit from yoga therapy. When time is limited, and you wish to learn yoga practises that support your health, yoga therapy can help. For instance, you may want help with your posture, stress or energy levels. Every session can be tailored to your changing health needs.

3. You feel intimidated about joining a group class

You may feel attracted to yoga, but the idea of joining a group class with mostly young, flexible people holds you back. Yoga should have no age or other restrictions, but challenges such as knee, shoulder or back pain can prevent you from doing certain positions. A yoga therapist can work around these concerns and still give you all the benefits of yoga. After all, yoga can be advantageous to everyone who has the chance to try it. It is said that as long as you can breathe, you can do yoga. Indeed, at some times in our lives, the breathing and relaxation elements of yoga can be more valuable than the poses.

4. You want to prevent injuries

Injuries in large yoga classes are not uncommon. In a large class, the teacher simply cannot give all students’ sufficient attention, let alone correct the misalignments. What’s more, while a good yoga teacher will always give you variations and the option to skip a pose, it’s easy to feel personal pressure to achieve the end position.

Private sessions with a yoga therapist can improve your yoga practice, making it safer and more intelligent for your unique body. Furthermore, individual attention is useful if you practise yoga frequently and you want to know whether you are doing the poses correctly, or if you are concerned about the safety of some poses for your body. You can then take this knowledge with you into a group class. You will have learned how the poses can serve you, rather than the other way around.

5. You have back pain

This section refers to the first point, but I treat it separately as this is my area of expertise. Back pain most rarely responds well to a general yoga class because:

• The class is too big for the teacher to give each student sufficient attention.

• Most general yoga classes contain poses that can deteriorate your back pain.

• Your particular back pain will improve with some yoga practises but feel worse with others, and this will depend on the particular cause of your back pain. A specialised yoga therapist will know which practises to recommend.

• To heal back pain, it is important to do exercises every day, so it is empowering to receive a tailored practice to do at home.

• It is essential to have sufficient time to discuss your particular back pain with a yoga therapist. Together, you can look at ways of correcting the postural, movement and lifestyle habits that may have led to or are perpetuating your condition.

There are few yoga therapists in the UK, but new ones graduate from several accredited organisations each year, so the future is brighter. If you find no yoga therapist near you, they are now also increasingly teaching online. With a holistic approach, yoga therapy is more necessary than ever.

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Would you like to try Yoga therapy for yourself?

My name is Bene Spoelders. I am a yoga therapist with over 14 years of experience. I work in person (London, UK) and online, teaching personalised yoga movements, breathing and relaxation techniques that can support your journey to better health and wellbeing.

I teach people with a variety of health challenges, but my area of expertise is back care, healthy ageing and stress management.

Click on the link below to view my practitioner profile and sign up for your free 30 minute consultation to find out if Yoga therapy is right for you.

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