Yoga

Yoga supports mental health

Yoga supports mental health

May is mental health awareness month. It is a time to actively engage in conversations about our struggles and triumphs related to mental health. According to NAMI, the national movement has sought to raise awareness about mental health, fight stigma, provide support, educate the public and advocate for policies that support people with mental illness and their families.

There is some evidence that yoga may be helpful in reducing depressive symptoms. But yoga is not a cure. Yoga offers tools that supports your mental health because it promotes a lifestyle aligned to the four major dimensions of recovery.

Yama, a Yoga Practice for Interacting with Others

Yama, a Yoga Practice for Interacting with Others

Yoga is a practice. You might be practicing your balance, flexibility, strength or perhaps it is mindfulness. Yoga is not a single practice. The more you practice yoga, the more you recognize the universality in life.

Harmonizing your mind, implies that you learn how you think. You explore how you interact with the world and yourself and how those interactions shape your emotions. In yoga terms, you cultivate Yama. Yama is narrowly translated as ethical guidelines or restraints. In reality, they are a set of universal practices that are fundamental habits of the mind. The 5 principles are a means to be aware of the instinctive patterns of the mind and to move them towards compassion.

Focused movement may improve balance, comfort, and mobility.

Focused movement may improve balance, comfort, and mobility.

The Feldenkrais Method is a system that uses a series of movements to guide the practitioner to use body sensation and perceptual feedback. In this method one gains a better awareness between comfort (favorable or easy) and unfavorable (painful or straining) positions. This focused practice teaches how movement patterns develop and how to retrain your movement patterns to avoid discomfort.

Dogwood Studios is excited to be able to offer a Feldenkrais Workshop April 30th with Guest Teacher Jacob Tyson (PT, DPT). The workshop will teach you about the method and how it can help you Optimize Your Yoga Practice.

Develop stress hardiness and transform negative stress

Develop stress hardiness and transform negative stress

Sometimes we think we have to be resilient; that if we are firm and strong, we can power through the turbulent times. However, if we try to power through long term uncertainty, we can hit a wall. We can shift our focus from powering through stress to transforming stress. We want to have a better relationship with what is causing the stress and how we can respond to it. This personality style is called stress hardiness.