Help Your Body Get to Where you want it to be
“The goal during yoga practice is to challenge yourself physically but not to feel overwhelmed. At this ‘edge’, the focus is on your breath while your mind is accepting the calm."
Harvard Medical School
Yoga Therapy
What Is Yoga Therapy?
Yoga therapy is the specific application of yogic tools—postures/exercises, breathwork, meditation techniques, and more—to address an individual’s physical, mental, and emotional needs.
Yoga therapists have in-depth training to help them assess and keep their clients safe. They work with you to address your specific goals while considering any limitations you might be experiencing.
I, as your certified Yoga therapist, will assess your situation and choose best adaptation of Yoga as applied to your unique situation. These adaptations may include:
- Movement ranging from gentle to vigorous
- Breathing techniques
- Meditation or visualization practices
- Physical postures that address specific areas of discomfort or musculoskeletal imbalances
- Any combination of tools like these!
It all depends on what you need to increase your health and well-being.
Many people first learn about yoga through its physical practices, but a common misconception is that it’s all about stretching or movement. Yoga therapy can help people who can’t move at all as well!
The yogic model of health is unique because it addresses every aspect of life rather than considering each body part or system separately. Yoga therapy is a safe way of working with the natural capacity of your body and mind to optimize well-being. Yoga focuses on your mind and body’s natural ability to heal naturally and alleviate issues if they arise.
A general public yoga class can certainly ease everyday aches, pains, and mood complaints. But a yoga therapy session, whether one-to-one or in a small group, goes much further because it is tailored to the individual.
What to Expect From a Yoga Therapy Session
When you decide to initiate yoga therapy, I will first conduct an initial assessment. This assessment is designed to do the following:
- Identify health problems
- Assess lifestyle and physical capability
- Discuss reasons for seeking therapy
- Create a course of treatment
Once the treatment plan is established in this first consultation, frequency of sessions is agreed upon and sessions are scheduled. From this point, therapy sessions will most likely include the following components:
- Breathing Exercises (Prayanama): I will guide you in therapy through a series of breathing exercises ranging from energizing breaths to balancing breaths.
- Physical Postures (Asana): I will teach you appropriate yoga poses that address problem areas. For example, the “Legs Up the Wall” pose is used to treat things like anxiety and insomnia. In this pose, the person lays on his or her back with legs positioned up against the wall.
- Meditation: Relaxation and mindfulness are the focus of meditation when it is combined with yoga poses.
- Guided Imagery: I will attempt to calm the body and mind by providing a guided visualization intended to bring inner peace.
- Homework: An important element for any yoga practice is to find a way to incorporate it into daily life. I will provide instructions on how to use what has been learned in treatment at home.
"Breathe deeply, until sweet air extinguishes the burn of fear in your lungs and every breath is a beautiful refusal to become anything less than infinite.”
D. Antoinette Foy
Pilates
Pilates (pronounced puh-lah-teez and not pie-lates) is a method of exercise and physical movement designed to stretch, strengthen, and balance the body. With systematic practice of specific exercises coupled with focused breathing patterns, Pilates has proven itself invaluable not only as a fitness endeavor, but also as an important adjunct to professional sports training and physical rehabilitation of all kinds.
I offer private or small group classes (2-3 people), where the client works on the Mat and some apparatus, such as the Reformer, Spine Corrector etc.
Benefits of Pilates (Mat or Reformer)
Health benefits of Pilates include:
- Improved flexibility and stability of spine. Core Strength. Improved posture, coordination and balance.
- Increased muscle strength and tone, particularly of your abdominal muscles, lower back, hips and buttocks (the ‘core muscles’ of your body)
- Enhanced muscular control of your back and limbs
- Rehabilitation or prevention of injuries related to muscle imbalances
- Relaxation of your shoulders, neck and upper back
- Safe rehabilitation of joint and spinal injuries
- Prevention of musculoskeletal injuries
- Increased lung capacity and circulation through deep breathing
- Improved concentration and body awareness
- Stress management and relaxation.
"Everyone is the architect of their own happiness.”
Joseph Pilates
ACE MediCupping™ Therapy
What is ACE MediCupping™ Therapy:
ACE MediCupping™ is a modern form of vacuum therapy. By creating suction and vacuum pressure, ACE Massage Cupping™ is used to soften tight muscles and tone attachments, loosen adhesions and lift connective tissue, bring hydration and blood flow to body tissues, move deep inflammation to the skin surface for release, and drain excess fluids and toxins by opening lymphatic pathways.
MediCupping™ uses a machine to create the suction and pumping movements.
Benefits of ACE MediCupping™ Therapy
MediCupping™ draws inflammation out from deep in the tissues to be released. It brings circulation up to the surface. Increased local blood supply to the muscles and skin brings nourishment and allows toxins to be carried away via the lymph. Combined with application of liniments, analgesics, plant hydrosols and essential oil blends immediately after treatment enables absorption of the product deep into the tissue.
This relieves chronic and acute pain with minimal discomfort. It softens tense muscles quickly and easily. It is very effective in releasing restrictions in fascia and scar tissue, such as plantar fasciitis via the amazing “separation” technique that vacuum produces in tissue layers, enabling water absorption, nutritional flow and waste elimination.
One of the most beneficial applications of vacuum therapy is for preparation and recovery from surgical procedures. The action on the nervous system is sedating and people often fall into a deep state of relaxation. On a deeper therapeutic level, this nervous system sedation is beneficial for those with high blood pressure, anxiety, insomnia, fatigue, chronic headaches, fibromyalgia and neuralgia.
Sports professionals are benefitting from the ease of recovery from injury or surgery and an increase in athletic performance, and major league sports teams are utilizing the therapy.
People with cellulite also find this very helpful.
For more information, visit Benefits of ACE Massage Cupping™ Therapy – MassageCupping.com