What is yoga?
Yoga is an ancient mind-body practice which originated in India over 2,000 years ago. It includes postures, called asanas, which are held alongside breathing exercises to help strengthen and stretch the body. It has also been shown to calm down our "fight or flight" hormonal pathways which when triggered lead to a hyper-vigilant, high-stress state. Yoga practice has been shown to address this heightened state of stress, helping decrease various health issues including blood pressure problems, heart disease, obesity, auto-immune issues and respiratory health. Performed regularly and correctly this can dramatically increase one’s quality of life.
Why use yoga in physiotherapy and rehabilitation?
Yoga has gained popularity as a safe form of exercise used to strengthen, tone and stretch the body as well as calm the mind. Stressful work practices involving long hours, prolonged sitting and travel have left a large portion of the population in state of physical and mental tightness. It is common to see individuals presenting at a physiotherapy clinic with a musculoskeletal pain, however many of these individuals experience a high level of stress in their work and personal lives, limiting the potential benefit that conventional treatment approaches can have. Yoga delivered as a form of rehabilitative physiotherapy gives us the opportunity to specifically address both physical tightness and postural issues as well as overall wellbeing.
Who is physiotherapy-led yoga appropriate for?
This delivery of yoga would be appropriate for anyone struggling with discomfort they know to be stemming from immobility and tightness. As the Yoga would be delivered by a physiotherapist for rehabilitation this would be done on either a one-to-one basis or a small class of one instructor to four people. This allows an individually tailored yoga plan to be provided to address specific issues. It may appeal to those individuals who have been advised to try a yoga class in the past but found that they were a little lost and uncomfortable in a large class where everyone was following the same syllabus. In practice we have found that a tailored programme using carefully selected yoga poses and practices to be particularly effective for those suffering a number of different issues including but not exclusive to:
? Long-standing back and neck pain
? Postural pain
? Balance
? Muscle definition and tone
? Lack of flexibility
? Sports performance enhancement
Examples to try at home
Various postures can be used to immediately improve a condition, mimicking a form of self administered first aid. For example, indigestion symptoms can be eased by sitting in hero pose.
Hero Pose (Virasana); A Digestive Pose
Come to a kneeling position, with a yoga block or two placed between your shins. Lengthen the spine and head up towards the ceiling. Maintain this position for four or five breaths. Come out of this posture if knee or any other pain is experienced.
Another of our favourite postures is bound angle pose. It is an amazing resting posture which is particularly calming for the nervous system and gives an additional stretch on chest to help improve posture.
Bound Angle Pose (Supta baddha konasana); A restorative posture
Lie on your back with your knees bent and big toes touching. Lengthen the spine and relax the shoulders. Take the arms approximately 45 degrees out from the body, with palms facing upwards. Allow the knees to drop out the sides, placing the soles of the feet together. For maximum effect, place pillows under each of the knees and take long slow deep breaths for up to two minutes. Bring the legs together and roll on the side for some more deep breaths before sitting up.
Raz Leonard carried out her Yoga Alliance approved teacher training in India in 2007 at the School of Santhi. She is a Chartered Physiotherapist at Physio Effect and currently teaches yoga to specific populations and APPI Clinical Pilates.
The dedicated team at Physio Effect provides a full package of services that will ensure you’re supported through your pain management, injury prevention, assessment, recovery and helping you achieve your ultimate performance goals. We offer a range of services including Physiotherapy, Sports Massage, Craniosacral Therapy, Clinical Pilates and Yoga
Unit 18A, 100 Borron Street, Glasgow G49 XG
E-mail: reception@physioeffect.co.uk
Phone: 0141 230 4766
www.physioeffect.co.uk
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here