Healing Combat Trauma

Vietnam Veteran Turns to Acupuncture, Qi Gong and Yoga for Relief from PTSD

We've been discussing various forms of Complementary and Alternative Medicine, or "CAM" for short, which seem to have potential therapeutic usefulnessness for treating PTSD.  Here's a mention in a recent article in the Salt Lake Tribune of March 14, 2008, of other Eastern methods, including the energetic medicine, "Qi Gong," which appear to have brought some relief to one Vietnam war-era nurse.  From an article by Matthew D. LaPlante:

Mary Jane Shipley is a 62-year-old former trauma nurse who was stationed at a mobile Army hospital in Vung Tau, Vietnam. 

Shipley's "eyes well with tears," LaPlante writes, at the recollection of the young men she watched die there, burnt and broken and missing pieces of their bodies as they faded away." 

He continues, "Shipley says she knew almost immediately after returning home there was something wrong with her. In part, it was the helicopters. She could hear them, even smell them, ferrying patients to the Salt Lake City hospital where she worked - sometimes minutes before any of her associates could."

Her other symptoms are hallmarks of PTSD: "She had trouble relating to other people. She was restless. She was constantly afraid. Perhaps to the eyes of today's doctors and nurses, Shipley's illness would have been obvious. But back then, no one reached out."

In Shipley's case, according to LaPlante, "It took her 30 years to realize she wasn't alone. Now in treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder, the Western-trained nurse has found Eastern therapies to be most helpful. She practices yoga and qigong. And at least twice a week, she undergoes acupuncture. "It took me so long to figure out what works for me," Shipley laments, "and I still have so much trouble."

"Yoga for the Nervous System: Healing Anxiety, Insomnia and PTSD"

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.

Combat Veterans at Walter Reed Give Yoga a Try

As part of our continuing series on Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) and veterans, linked here, there's news that a specific type of yoga called "Yoga Nidra" is being used at Walter Reed, bringing benefits to veterans who've been trying it.  An article from the Washington Post about the practice, by Eileen Rivers, called "A Breath of Hope: Walter Reed Tries Yoga to Counter PTSD," was published on May 6 and is linked here.  One nice quote from the article - the yoga teacher reports that "Students in class come up to me and say, 'I haven't felt this relaxed in a long time,' " "They say that they are more patient with their family. They're not as angry," she adds.  One of the participants mentioned in the article, combat veteran Derrick Farley, a 29 year old Army sergeant from Fort Bragg, who has deployed to Iraq three times, says that what he's learned in class has helped him cope.  He practices what he's learned, stays in touch with the other participants he's met in the program, and appreciates the chance yoga's given him to get a more restful night's sleep.  As he says as the conclusion of the article, " "It's not about finding a cure for PTSD," Farley said. "It's about learning to cope."  Excellent and well-said!

To learn more about Yoga Nidra, including trainings offered for practitioners and individuals on both coasts, check out the link to the Center for Timeless Being, located in Sebastopol, CA, linked here. Or you can pick up the CD by that center's director, Richard Miller, Ph.D., called Integrative Restoration: The Ancient Practice of Yoga Nidra for Easing Stress, Healing Trauma, and Awakening to Your Timeless Presence, linked here.

Just Say "Om" - Yoga and Meditation for PTSD

Long before Mehmet Oz, M.D., was a regular guest on "Oprah" -- long before the Army started contemplating whether Complementary and Alternative Medicine had a place in treating PTSD, blogged about here -- there was yoga, and there was meditation.  For thousands of years, these techniques for helped adherents gain flexibility, quiet the mind, and often, restore some inner peace.  CAM for PTSD is in the news recently, but a book by well-regarded Rodale Press, from a dozen years ago, mentions both yoga and meditation, as well as sound healing, as possible therapies for PTSD.  Here's what they have to say:

Stress reduction is an essential part of recovery from post-traumatic stress disorder, says Stephen A. Nezezon, M.D., yoga teacher and staff physician at the Himalayan International Institute of Yoga Science and Philosophy in Honesdale, Pennsylvania.  To lower stress, he says, you can try a daily routine of breathing exercises, mediation, and yoga poses.

Do the complete Yoga breath exercise (see link here) whenever you’re feeling stressed, suggests Alice Christensen, founder and executive director of the American Yoga Association.  Meditation helps clear your mind and teaches you to relax, she says.  For the poses, select three or four from a Yoga daily routine.  Christensen recommends varying the poses daily to keep your interest high and to strengthen different parts of your body.  Dr. Nezezon says you should include at least one relaxation pose, such as "the corpse" (pictured above), "knee squeeze," or "baby," in your daily yoga routine.

Dr. Nezezon also recommends doing the "alternate nostril breath" (explanation linked here) each day as a way of helping you regain emotional balance. 

Source: New Choices in Natural Healing: Over 1,800 of the Best Self-Help Remedies from the World of Alternative Medicine, Edited by Bill Gottlieb, Editor-in-Chief, Prevention Magazine Health Books.  Emmaus, PA: Rodale Press, Inc. (1995).

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For more information about yoga, try these highly-rated instructional videos, produced by Gaiam, an excellent source for such material: Yoga for Beginners, Yoga for Stress Relief (with the Dalai Lama), and AM/PM Yoga For Beginners (with The Dalai Lama & 10 Routines),  You can also try reading about Yoga on About.com (linked here), subscribe to the Yoga Journal, or watch the Yoga Journal's video on Yoga for Stress.  (All hyperlinks lead you to the material described.)

 

For more information about meditation, sometimes referred to as "the inner Yoga," try these videos by Gaiam, an internationally-recognized source of high-quality instructional material about various bodywork therapies, including yoga.  Meditation for Beginners, and/or Relaxation and Breathing for Meditation.  You can also try books at Amazon.com by American author, Jon Kabat-Zinn, Ph.D., featured in an excellent Bill Moyers series on PBS years ago called Healing and the Mind.  Kabat-Zinn is Professor of Medicine Emeritus and founding director of the Stress Reduction Clinic and the Center for Mindfulness in Medicine, Health Care, and Society at the University of Massachusetts Medical School in Worcester, Massachusetts.  Kabat-Zinn teaches mindfulness meditation as a technique to help people cope with stress, anxiety, pain and illness, and leads workshops and retreats on the power of mindfulness, such as the one linked here (registration is full, but there is a waiting list).