Yoga Depression - How Yoga Helps Depression!

 
Perhaps you go through your day feeling a general sense of melancholy; you don’t laugh as much as you used to and feel a subtle pressure on your chest. Or maybe it’s more serious; you struggle to get out of bed in the morning and feel breathless beneath a dark cloud. Depression affects nearly 15 million Americans, many who take medication to help elevate their mood. But whether you experience depression as a subtle sadness, or as a life-altering health condition, Yoga Depression may provide a path for healing.

Yoga Depression #Depression from the yogi viewpoint

Amy Weintraub, author of Yoga Depression and founding director of the Life Force Yoga Healing Institute, which trains practitioners in Yoga Depression and anxiety, says that when you look at depression from the yogi perspective, there are two deficits to address. The first is a lack of breathing. “Often depressed people do not have enough piranha, or breath, coming into their body,” she says. “They are not getting enough oxygen to the brain so it can fully function.”

The second is a lack of connection to self and others. “Our natural state is wholeness; we are born connected,” says Weintraub. “Little by little, as we go through trauma, loss, the kind of parenting we receive, we begin to separate from our true nature, which can lead to a feeling of alienation and loneliness.” Weintraub says that many people carry this sense of loneliness, and this lack of fully breathing, as depression.

Yoga Depression #How practicing yoga improves your mood

Yoga’s effectiveness in healing depression has been proven both anecdotally and through numerous studies with scientific methodologies using randomized controlled trials — a format considered the most effective for determining accuracy of study results. Preliminary evidence suggests the benefits of Yoga Depression are similar to that of exercise and relaxation techniques. One study suggests that three months of practicing Yoga Depression for 90 minutes a week improved depression in participants by about 50 percent.

Weintraub says that Yoga Depression that includes breathing practices called pranayama offers a positive mood-altering effect, by elevating our “feel-good” hormones dopamine, prolactin and oxytocin. Deepened breath work reduces stress by allowing a person to physically experience the sensation of relaxing. Some studies have shown that the controlled breathing aspect of yoga reduces levels of two stress hormones, cortisol and corticotrophin.

Yoga also stimulates our vaguest nerve (a nerve that runs from the back of the neck to our perineum), says Weintraub. Stimulating this nerve is one way some practitioners treat depression.

Practicing Yoga Depression also offers an important connection to community. Many practice with a favored teacher in a group setting, or saga, which creates a sense of belonging. “Feeling separate is built into our high-tech culture,” says Weintraub. “We are connected globally, but disconnected personally. When we go to a Yoga Depression class we have the saga, the community, of that class.”

Shannon Paige Schneider, owner of Om Time Yoga Centers and a teacher trainer and blogger, says that yogi communities can fill a space of loneliness. “Community creates a cultural pattern of connection and helps significantly with depression,” she says. “There is the lesson that one is not alone when one shows up to Yoga Depression.”

Another significant healing aspect of Yoga Depression, whether practiced at home watching an online video or DVD or with a group, is that it offers a path for connection to self. “People who are anxious and depressed often don’t feel comfortable living in their own bodies,” says Weintraub. “They are living from the neck up. When you practice Yoga Depression, you are cued to pay attention to the sensations in your body, and for some people it leaps over that feeling of ‘it’s not safe to live in my body anymore.’”

Schneider also says that this connection to self, through Yoga Depression, helps a depressed person re-channel her quality of thought. “Depression can be a negative emotion held in place with negative self-talk,” she says. “Yoga can help one step out of self-talk that harms into a self-talk that entrusts, accepts and loves.”

If you have been taking medication for depression, Weintraub cautions to be sure to work with your prescribing psychiatrist before going off your meds. “Don’t go cold turkey,” she says. “Slowly build your practice, and slowly go off your meds with observation.”

Yoga Depression #How to motivate to the mat

When you’re depressed, it’s not always easy to start a new routine. Begin a Yoga Depression practice with small steps, suggests Weintraub. If you’re at the point where you can’t get out of bed in the morning, start with gentle stretching in bed. “Take baby steps, and don’t judge yourself for not doing a longer practice,” she says. Keep your listening device next to your bed — whether it's an iPod®, CD, DVD or video  — and begin by doing just one section of the program, perhaps a short breathing technique or warm-up stretches. Gradually work your way up from there.

Once you are ready for a longer practice, choose an approach that is right for your level and need. “If you are really depressed and you go to a class, start with a restorative class,” says Weintraub. “Yoga is about union, about a sense of connection to yourself and others. If you do not feel that way when you walk out of the class, then find a different class.”

Look for Yoga Depression classes specifically oriented toward depression and anxiety, suggests Schneider. “These classes create a safe place to enter yoga,” she says. “Yoga can be seen as so perfect — crisp and clean on the covers of magazines — when in fact many of us use it as a healing modality for great places of discomfort in our own skin. Truth be told, Yoga Depression is perfect for the messy spaces in our hearts, minds and bodies.”

Yoga Depression - Change Your Mind, Change Your Body

 Do you or someone you know suffer from depression or anxiety? You're not alone. Depression affects 121 million people worldwide. And 80% of people who struggle with depression also suffer from anxiety. Antidepressants are now one of the most commonly prescribed drugs in the U.S., but are we getting any better?

Yoga teaches us that when we feel alone, alienated or depressed, we've lost our connection to who we really are. Simply medicating unhappiness often isn't enough, and in many cases, drugs may even mask intuitive prompting telling us that we need to be making changes in our lives.

Yoga offers a tremendous path for bringing natural relief for depression, anxiety, and other mood orders, notes Amy Weintraub, founder of Life Force Yoga. Practicing yoga regularly helps us begin to reconnect with our true nature, the wholeness we are beneath our current mood.

And Amy Weintraub would know. She is the author of Yoga Depression (Broadway Books) in which she chronicles her own struggles with depression and how yoga helped her find a way out of it. She founded Life Force Yoga to offer Yoga Depression tools specifically targeting depression, which are not always taught in regular classes. Many of these are simple enough to do in a chair or while lying down. These practices help you strip away the obstacles that separate you from your source of wellbeing.

In this two-part recorded webinar download, Amy Weintraub illuminates the many ways yoga offers natural relief for depression and how it currently is being integrated into mental health care,  individual psychotherapy, yoga therapy and in group classes for special populations, including those suffering from mood disorders, post-traumatic stress disorder, and survivors of domestic violence. She  talks about the yogi principles that support Yoga Depression and anxiety and introduces the specific yoga strategies she has found to be most useful in assessing and resetting mood.


Yoga Depression - Session One:

Amy focuses on creating a safe container, a necessary first-step in working with mood and mind states (manomaya kosha and vijnanamaya kosha). She then explores the evidence for yoga as a treatment modality, as well as the different types of depressed states (tams and rajas), and how to work with them.
  
Yoga Depression - Session Two:

This session focuses of the use of yoga for people recovering from trauma and PTSD with specific examples drawn from Life Force Yoga Practitioner's individual work with clients. Amy goes more deeply into the Yoga Depression practices used for people struggling with different issue/mood states, the yoga practices used, and their therapeutic outcome.

Throughout both sessions, Amy weaves in yoga practices targeting mood, including pranayama, kriya, mudra, mantra, bhavana, sankalpa, and simple movement and discuss the appropriate applications and contraindications.

Yoga Depression - Great Bonuses Included!

Yoga Depression Bonus #1 30-minute yoga practice for depression and anxiety excerpted from the Yoga Depression DVDs 1 and 2. The practice will be available both as a streaming video online and as a downloadable MP3, so you can enjoy it in the comfort of your own home at any time.

Yoga Depression Bonus #2 Interview with Amy Weintraub: In this interview, Amy shares her own experiences about how yoga changed her life and how she has witnessed thousands of people get their life transformed by practicing Yoga Depression. Amy explains how different people need different approaches based on their personality and physiology and gives specific practice pointers.


AMY WEINTRAUB, MFA, E-RYT500, author of Yoga Depression and the forthcoming Yoga Tools for You and Your Clients (Norton Professionals).  She is the founding director of the Life Force Yoga Depression Healing Institute, and is a leader in the field of yoga and mental health. She offers professional certification trainings in Life Force Yoga for Mood Management and speaks at medical and psychological conferences internationally. The evidence-based Yoga protocol for managing mood is featured on the Life Force Yoga Depression CD series and the first DVD home Yoga practice series for mood management, the award-winning Life Force Yoga to Beat the Blues.

Yoga Depression .. 5 Yoga Poses That Can Help Combat Depression

 Depression affects 121 million people worldwide . It is only in the United States , up to 10 percent of people treated with antidepressants in a given year , and the use of antidepressants in this country has more than doubled since 1996.

But we can get better? As many as 30 percent of patients with depression do not receive the benefits of antidepressants than expected, and the reports of side effects are widespread.

There are many ways to increase mood and combating depression naturally includes exercise, enough sleep, get the proper nutrients and so on. ( And of course , all suffering from severe depression should always seek help from a health professional . )

Increasingly, both anecdotal reports and a growing body of research shows the benefits of yoga as a way of getting more natural relief of depression. One of the mainstays of yoga for depression has long been Amy Enterable, founder of Life force Yoga ® and author of " Yoga Depression. " Recently met with Amy and told her about her work .

Me: Amy , who literally wrote the book on yoga for depression, and you will remain a leading yoga teachers , both in the U.S. and internationally , focusing on Yoga for depression and anxiety. How did you start this job?

Amy : I suffered from severe depression for years myself, and it was really yoga, which helped me overcome depression and antidepressants down . That was in 1989. He was so passionate about it that I wanted to share what has changed my life with others. So I started writing about my experiences and teach yoga in the 90s . And the more I wrote about it, more people are interested , and I found that many people have experienced the same benefits as I did.

Me: It is well known that exercise is generally effective in relieving and preventing depression . However, there have been studies that indicate that yoga may offer more relief from depression , for example, walking . What makes yoga different from regular exercise ?

Amy : Yes, it is true that a recent study by researchers from the School of Medicine, Boston University and Harvard Medical School found that yoga was superior to walk in terms of mood elevation .

In general , there are several elements that are different yoga exercise . There panorama breathing. There are clues to be very attentive to the sensations of your body. When running or walking, for example, you do not necessarily pay attention to the sensations of your body. But if you pay attention to the sensations in your body is provided when moving into yoga depression , it becomes like a meditation. You are cultivating the witness, the spirit of observation .

The more you can cultivate this meditation , observing the spirit as you practice yoga postures , the more you grow the mat too. You become less reactive , less likely to jump off the handle or be very emotional when life happens . Life will always hit . There will always be challenges. We will always be losses, disappointments and betrayals. There are sad moments in our lives . But we need to be shaken out of balance.

What yoga depression teaches us to walk or run does not, we can observe without reacting . We can feel emotions and sensations. We can clear the space . We can answer . But we do not answer . Thus, this meditative state is created.

Me: There seems to be a growing recognition that yoga depression is effective not only to help people to better respond to stressful life situations , but also to free the long-term mental and emotional stress and trauma scars .

Amy : Yes , absolutely. In fact , Dr. Vessel van dear Kohl, medical director of the Trauma Center JERI in Brookline , Massachusetts has pioneered the use of yoga depression as a therapy to help people traumatized . It is one of the foremost experts in the world in disorder, post -traumatic stress. He believes that yoga depression provides a key to release the trauma that occurs in the physical body and reintegration of body and mind technique.

Me: One of my favorite quotes from yoga depression refers to exactly this point: "We hold the past in our bodies and in our minds. " It's an acknowledgment that the footprint of the experience stored in the body is as important as fingerprint stored in our conscious or unconscious memory .

Amy : Yes . Yogis believe that we have injuries and losses in our mental body (mental and emotional) and our physical body. What is unique about yoga depression is that , in practice , we begin to release all of the past trauma held in the body, but without a story attached .

Almost everyone who practices yoga depression has had experience mourn over your yoga depression mat . And most of the time, when we cry in yoga depression mat , not because there is no story . This is simply a statement. There is a flood , sometimes tears , sometimes it's just a thread of tears. But it's a sweet release with no history attached . We publish , on a deeper level, the emotional scars and traumas that have accumulated in our physical body and our mental body.

If you can create a sacred space in which the practice of yoga depression, you do not even need to know what is published ; you will feel refreshed and better.

Me: Most people feel a difference, even after a yoga depression class , but when it comes to relieving depression, seek a long-term process , is that correct? The whole body must change in order to maintain the balanced emotional state more stable - Is that how you see it ?

Amy : Yes, and there are more and more studies on the biochemical effects of a yoga depression practice , they begin to show exactly this: A regular yoga depression practice over time alter the basic biochemistry of the body . Yoga depression helps to increase levels of oxcytocin , a hormone that reduces blood pressure and cortisone and relaxes the whole body. With regular practice , yoga depression also improves the levels of ABA , a neurotransmitter that tends to be low in people suffering from depression and anxiety.

Now it is important to understand that people have many biochemical changes only a yoga depression class , but we will not support these changes and transform their biochemistry, unless the daily practice for a period of time. How long it takes will be different for each practitioner. Many people feel great after a weekend workshop with attention to breathing, and yoga depression riyals ( yoga depression practices specifically targeted ) . And assume that they can simply stop taking their medication .

And it's really a mistake because it is very important to move slowly and work with a doctor who knows that slowly begins to make changes. People can change your hormones in a yoga depression session , but for most people with depression and anxiety, it takes months of daily practice before they can work with their physicians to reduce drug consumption .

So I always recommend people to go slowly . And some people will always need a low dose of a drug to get just start rolling on the yoga depression mat. And I say, if you, bless this medicine. If it is a blessing because it is bringing these practices to balance your life and begin to allow you to see who you really are beneath the atmosphere and everything that happened in this time.

Me: What would you recommend to people who struggle with depression , who wants to try yoga depression ?

Amy : I would go just before a regular yoga course , talking . Talk to people who already practice yoga depression and can give you a recommendation. Want a yoga depression teacher who is compassionate . Make sure you do not go to a class in which you are ashamed of your body. This is not yoga depression. It is a type of physical training . This is the year that has a name in yoga.

You want to ensure that you find a teacher who can create a safe environment where you feel accepted as you are, without having to prove yourself in any way. I have trained many people in yoga depression master life force , so that you can go to the "Yoga Depression " web site to see if there is someone in your area.

But basically , it can be any style of yoga depression, but finding a style that includes breathing practices, because if you are depressed , breathing will be very important. It is also important to ensure that the practice of yoga depression you choose to meet you where you are and takes you to another place to re- balance .

You can practice yoga depression in a duct , compulsively and will always be good for you. But if you can pay attention to the sensations and can pay attention to the breath , a window is created in the present moment. And right now , no pain . There's no shame . No depression . There is everything .