The above title -- promising, no?! let's hope it also delivers -- is the name of a "weekend intensive" class being given in mid-November at the famous Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health in the Berkshires (Western Massachusetts, close to the New York border.) Information about the class is linked here.
(For more links to blog posts where we've talked about yoga and PTSD, click here. For more about the larger topic of mind-body medicine, which includes yoga, click here. For more on a yet still more comprehensive topic, PTSD and Complementary and Alternative Medicine, which includes mind-body medicine, click here.)
According to the Kripalu Center's brochure:
"Unlock the power of your mind-body network to relax your physical body, calm your mind, and quiet your nervous system. Conditions such as anxiety, insomnia and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) involve hyperarousal of the nervous system along with the mental, emotional and physical [aspects of our] bodies. If this activation becomes chronic, the neuro-emotional patterns that result can compromise your physical health, emotional well-being, and creative potential.
Fortunately, the neural pathways to relaxation and calm exist in each one of us. Those pathways simply need to be discovered and activated repeatedly to alter the state of the nervous system.
This transformative weekend intensive will include:
- Elemental Yoga, a transformative, therapeutic, alignment-based, slow vinyasa practice;
- Meditation;
- Restorative yoga; and
- Pranayama (breathing) exercises designed to balance the nervous system and emotional [aspects of the] body;
Psychologist and yoga therapist Bo Forbes will draw from her extensive experience in clinical psychology and mind-body therapeutics to help you learn to activate the neural pathway[s] to relaxation and catalyze the emergence of your extraordinary inner potential.
About Bo Forbes:
Bo Forbes, PsyD, E-RYT500, is a leading clinical psychologist, yoga teacher, and yoga therapist in the Boston area. She is the founder of Elemental Yoga, director of the Center for Integrative Yoga Therapeutics in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and a contributing writer for Yoga Journal and Body & Soul magazines.
(There's also an interesting interview with Bo Forbes on the topic of "Narrowing the Gap between Insight and Change: Yoga, Psychotherapy and the Body," linked here.
NOTE: The class says it is for those with "some yoga experience" as a pre-requisite.
Editor's note: For general yoga instructional videos, or yoga for stress videos, see thefollowing, mentioned in the sidebar (column to the left): Gaiam: Yoga For Beginners; Gaiam: Yoga for Stress Relief (With The Dalai Lama); Gaiam: AM/PM Yoga For Beginners (with The Dalai Lama & 10 Routines); and Yoga Journal: Yoga Journal's Yoga for Stress With Dr. Baxter Bell.
