Yoga as an Adjunct to Physical Therapy
Yoga is a practice that focuses on stretching, breathing and meditation. Many people are drawn to it because they want to work on relieving stress, get in shape, become more flexible, decrease pain and increase core strength.
There are different kinds of yoga:
- Hatha: One of the most popular types of yoga, hatha yoga is meant to achieve balance between the mind and body. It includes traditional yoga postures for all levels, and is often a general term used to describe a collection of yoga styles.
- Ashtanga and Power Yoga: This involves a fast-paced, flowing sequence of postures that gradually increase in difficulty.
- Forrest: A more contemporary type of yoga that makes you work up a sweat. It involves deep breathing, core strengtheners and holding postures for a longer time period. It is meant to purify and strengthen the body, along with promote the release of negative emotions and pain.
- Vinyasa: A gentle yoga practice in which breathing is synchronized with the poses.
- Bikram: A series of 26 poses are performed in a heated room (the temperature can be anywhere from 90-100 degrees F) to make your body sweat. The heat in the room is meant to increase your body’s flexibility, reduce the risk of injury and help you to detoxify.
- Kundalini: Kundalini yoga is meant to awaken a powerful energy that is located at the base of the spine. The energy, once released, is said to bring a great sense of well-being and awareness.
- Bharata: Bharata yoga helps to align the spine to increase mobility and improve posture.
- Ananda: Includes a series of gentle hatha yoga poses designed to send energy toward the brain to prepare the body for meditation. This type of yoga is meant to promote spiritual growth and self-awareness.
- Anusara: Meaning literally “to step into the current of divine will,” anusara is meant to promote awareness and well-being along with body alignment.
- Iyengar: This is a practice geared strongly toward bodily alignment. Poses are held for longer periods (as opposed to “flowing” from one into the other).
- Jivamukti: A physically intense yoga series that also involves chanting, meditation, and spiritual teachings.
I will typically refer people to yoga when I feel that flexibility, posture and stress are significant causes of their pain. We have a number of staff members who do yoga regularly for both the flexibility and the strength aspects. It is something that some people go to simply to have a time of peace in their day or week and that is a rare and precious thing these days!
No matter what the reason is that a person may go to yoga, my personal thought is that it is a wonderful practice and that it has many positive benefits for a person’s physical and psychological health.