group participates in yoga therapy sessionYoga can be a powerful aid for individuals in therapy. The benefits of yoga therapy include improved physical health and, at the same time, improved mental health. It is a practice that helps individuals disrupt their normal or habitual movements to instead strengthen muscles usually not used. By participating in the poses themselves, you will get stronger, and your body will naturally start to feel better.

Yoga therapy also slows down the mind encouraging it to focus on a pose or breathing. In those quiet moments, clients begin to unlock emotions and memories, granting them the opportunity to be processed healthily. This is why yoga therapy is such a powerful tool. When combined with another form of treatment or therapy at Grace Counseling, yoga therapy vastly improves recovery and healing from a substance use disorder or any mental health issue.

How Yoga Therapy Connects Physical and Mental Wellbeing

As an exercise, yoga strengthens the body. Our mental health is connected to our physical health. For many individuals, when they feel physically good or bad, their mental state follows suit. This doesn’t mean that exercise solves your mental health issues. Rather, exercises like yoga generate physical benefits that encourage positive mental states and discourages negative ones.

Yoga can help strengthen the body in several different ways. Perhaps the clearest advantage is it is a practice that increases your flexibility. Doing so has practical effects on your body as it takes stress off of joints and improves overall mobility. This can, in turn, make an individual feel more positive about their body image and reduce negative self-image. Similarly, blood flow increases through yoga. This increase in the amount of oxygen delivered to cells helps them function more efficiently and heal more quickly.

These practical effects on the body position individuals to have the impact of stress and anxiety reduced. Yoga can help improve your quality of life just by reducing your stress levels. There is a direct correlation between how we feel physically and how we feel emotionally. So when we take the time to improve our physical health, our emotional health benefits as well. Feeling stronger gives you more confidence and helps you feel more comfortable through everyday life.

The Benefits of Therapeutic Yoga

Yoga has been around for centuries because the physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual potency of the practice has proven to be very effective in treating mental and physical issues. Yoga therapy is a complementary pathway to any recovery program grounded in the 12-Steps. This is because it is a practice that strengthens an individual’s physical body and mental wellbeing. Individuals engaged in yoga therapy learn to improve their ability to cope with overwhelming emotions, stress, and self-defeating thoughts. For individuals in recovery, this is a valuable trait to develop. For those struggling with a mental health issue, mindfulness yoga therapy encourages helps clients achieve an inner-balance, empowering them to deal with their anger, guilt, shame, or anxiety.

Some other benefits of yoga therapy include:

  • Impulse control: Yoga helps you gain the ability to substitute healthy actions for destructive ones and build your self-esteem.
  • Mindfulness: The deep breathing yoga teaches eventually becomes natural, giving clients another means to calm and center themselves when stressed or confronted with triggers.
  • Fitness: The poses learned in yoga therapy build strength, agility, flexibility, and focus. Improved fitness means clients can healthily deal with and release anger and tension.

Health and Wellness at Grace Counseling

Our yoga therapists are fully licensed, providing instruction at all levels. It doesn’t matter if you’ve never taken a yoga class or are very familiar with the practice. At Grace Counseling, our yoga therapy program is designed to enhance your physical and mental wellbeing. Reach out to us today at 844.564.0712, or contact us online to learn more and find the session right for you.