Why I recommend yoga to my clients in therapy: A Note on the benefits of Mindful Movement!
You've probably heard by now that yoga is good for your physical and mental health. Maybe you've even tried it for yourself and realized it helped you feel less stressed. Maybe you haven’t because you think you’ll just end up cross-legged and confused while chanting “Ohmmmm.”
Regardless of your preconceptions of what yoga is, who it’s for, or what the practice may look like- let’s take a closer look at what landed you here today. It is no surprise that yoga improves strength, balance and flexibility. Have you ever reflected on how your has body changed over the years and thought, “Wow, I was SO much more flexible as a kid?” I don’t know about you, but I remember doing some jaw-dropping splits at age 7. As we get older our flexibility usually decreases, especially if you spend a lot of time sitting during the work day. This can lead to pain and immobility, amongst other problems. Yoga may help reverse this process.
While these are wonderful benefits of yoga, they have very little to do with why I might recommend yoga to a client. Let’s start with the obvious: yoga has been shown to have a positive effect on depression and anxiety, and there is research to support this. For example, one randomized controlled study found that women who practiced yoga twice a week experienced significant improvements to their mental health.
Second, you wouldn’t recommend a book to someone that you hadn’t read, would you? Walk the Walk, so to speak. The benefits of yoga hit home for me, so of course, I am going to share this practice with my clients! Therapists sure do love to spill the tea when it comes to self care and healthy means of stress management :)
Pictured left: Hanging in my backyard working on my Warrior 3.
A regular yoga practice has helped me to create healthier habits and has helped establish a morning ritual that I love. I no longer find myself raging at my 6:00am alarm and silently think, “10 more minutes” or “At 6:20am, I’ll get up…6:30am, for real this time…" ultimately delaying until there isn’t any time left of the morning to spare. Instead, I look forward to rolling out of bed and onto my mat (words I never thought i’d utter). I have felt more motivated to engage in other forms of exercise and overall feel more relaxed and easy-going when sticking with my regular practice.
Yoga has also helped to create more consistency and variation in my mindfulness practice. Sometimes an awake/alert/grounded posture just isn’t what my body is calling for and that’s okay.
Which brings me to my third and possibly strongest notion: yoga is a form of mindful movement. A few additional examples of mindfulness movement include martial arts (such as Qigong, tai chi, karate), mindful walking and horseback riding. Mindfulness is a core skill I teach to almost all of my clients. Yoga happens to be a relatively accessible form of mindfulness movement (more on accessibility at the end of this blog post)!
So What is Mindfulness?
Mindfulness is living with your eyes wide open, as Linehan would say. It is being attuned to the present. A moment-by-moment awareness of our thoughts, feelings, bodily sensations, and surrounding environment, through a nonjudgmental lens.
My clients who are new to mindfulness training will often come to me and say, “But Katie, my mind kept wandering. It didn’t work, my mind is just too busy. This is making me feel worse!” First, I will check generally check in on expectations of the practice. Second, I often end up responding with the same question, “Did you redirect back to the present moment?” Usually the answer is yes! To which I respond in a celebratory manner, “That, is the practice!” My client looks at me with a confused gaze and I go on to explain..
Mindfulness hurts, that’s why it works. It can be frustrating, uncomfortable, provocative…all of the things that we naturally want to avoid. Mindfulness isn’t always about feeling better, its about getting better at feeling and being present (even when we might not want to be). Sound counterintuitive? I hear you. Practice makes progress!
Why Mindfulness?
In short: The goals of mindfulness in my personal therapy practice are in alignment with the goals of mindfulness practice in Dialectical Behavioral Therapy: To reduce suffering, increase happiness (reduce pain, tension, stress, etc), increase control of your mind (as opposed to letting your mind be in control of you), and experiencing reality as it is. What made me drink the Koolaid? Neuroscience. Research. Personal Experience.
Yoga is another way to practice mindfulness.
I love that yoga incorporates exercise that most people are able to engage in. It’s an amazing way to connect mind and body with awareness. Yoga is also an exercise free of judgment or expectation, imagine that! Really awesome thing here is that you do not need to be an expert to experience the benefits of yoga.
“Yoga is the art of waking up. It offers up a way for us to see a world that is working for you, instead of against you.”
- Adriene Mishler
Where can I get started with my yoga practice?
Whether you’re a beginner, bonafide yogi, or yoga guru- I recommend Insight Timer. Insight Timer allows you to experience live yoga for free and from the comfort of your own home! It’s probably one of my most recommended Apps to clients since it offers SO much at no cost: It’s very own mindfulness section, meditations for sleep/anxiety/stress, live classes on various subjects and more.
My cousin recently put me on to Yoga With Adriene which offers free pre-recorded yoga classes that weave in mindfulness practices with such ease. So, if you’re like me, and you can't always catch a live class or wish to practice yoga at your own leisure- this is a wonderful alternative! Side note- I am definitely not hip enough to get any sort of commission for my recommendations. So seriously, check them out!
June 21st is International Yoga Day! Celebrate by getting on the mat and into your practice.
Always consult with your doctor prior to engaging in any new physical activity.