Hi all! I hope everyone is staying warm and well this winter. I recently had the opportunity to sit down with Dr. Tara Salay PT, DPT, RYT-500 of Lilybridge Yoga Studio where we discussed the power of combining yoga and psychotherapy together to create a more balanced person; from inside and out!
She answered some questions for us and I even had the opportunity to learn some yoga poses that are great for relaxation and re-centering our bodies!
Brittany: “How can therapy and yoga work together?”
Tara: “Yoga is another tool for someone to start to take control back in their life, you’re relying on yourself. In movement-based yoga practice, it is going to connect the mind and body together. Yoga movements can help bridge the gap between movement and mind. One of the goals of yoga is about working on letting go of the past and future and staying in the present moment.By practicing yoga, you will learn how to be able to re-center yourself if things come up. Yoga is a great tool to utilize in between therapy sessions to help guide and re-center yourself. You can do this with meditation or movement-based practices.”
Yoga poses helpful for relaxation:
1. Child’s pose – In this pose, you’re laying with your third eye on the floor, connecting to earth and grounding yourself. It can be extremely helpful if you struggle with a lot of thoughts.By placing the third eye on the earth, it can help you get out of your head space and return to a more grounded state.
2. Yogi Squat – AKA Malasana – Is also great for grounding due to your feet (our roots) being in contact with the earth because you are low to the ground. This is also an example of a hip opener.
3. Laying down butterfly – AKA Supta Baddha Konasana – Also another great example of a hip opener which can be helpful for releasing stored emotion. Also as an added bonus, you can stay in this one a bit longer and do Savasana which is wonderful for deep relaxation.
Some Yoga tips for Anxiety:
· Meditation
· Grounding poses
· Child’s pose
Yoga poses to release emotions:
Tara discusses hip openers being a good way to release emotions. As well as twisting poses can help decrease powerless feelings and help you feel more empowered.
Energy Flow:
Something that kept coming up during our yoga session was the word energy. We kept talking about our bodies and the energy within them, and it led us to how yoga can help keep our energy flowing nicely while also working in therapy on clearing out the emotional space that we keep our thoughts and emotions bottled up in. Looking at it from the perspective of; have you ever felt like you feel blocked or stuck? Yoga and therapy can help you move that stuck energy. By moving your body, it will move the thoughts in your mind. Vinyasa type yoga poses can work on different energy centers to re-center your body through movement. Something we discuss often in therapy is how trauma and emotions can remain in our body, long after we thought they were gone. They store somewhere needing an outlet of movement or healing or they get stuck in areas and you can have emotional issues, and/or physical symptoms associated with it as well!
Reach out to us at feelalivetherapy@gmail.com for therapy sessions or Dr. Tara for Yoga – in person or virtual https://drtarasalay.com/ ! We all have the same goal of helping you Feel Alive ❤️
