Whenever we hear the word Yoga, a picture of a yogi in a mountain pose immediately strikes our mind. But yoga has many layers; as we go deeper and deeper, these continue to get removed one by one and with each layer, we climb one step up in the awareness ladder. There are hundreds of documented reasons for doing yoga, and the main reason is health, and mental awareness.
There are scientific evidences that show how few minutes of yoga can give you relief. While all the forms of yoga could be therapeutic, it gave birth to yet another branch, “yoga therapy”. Yoga Therapy was coined by Swami Kuvalyananda in the 1920s, he discovered that it is possible for us now to compute and assess the physical and physiological changes that happen during yoga practice. His ideas generated new ways of thinking and helped to foster wealth of scientific studies and research on the impact of yoga on the various ailments or medical conditions.
Main difference between yoga and yoga therapy is the way it is applied. Yoga is a series of poses and even moments of meditation which can be applied for overall physical and mental health benefit. Yoga works to relief us from stress, giving immediate relief. It is generally practiced in a group as a series of poses and moments which even includes meditation and pranayama. But yoga can also be done alone. But on the other hand, Yoga Therapy is an individualized approach to deal with a particular medical ailment or medical condition. The courses are thus formulated taking into consideration specific need of a person. It is not necessarily about teaching yoga but utilization of yoga based technique to work on the particular ailment and restore the health. Sometimes doctors can suggest yoga therapy for the people with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), back pain or depression. And the experience that they get would be quite different from what a general yoga student would be getting.
Let us understand step by step how Yoga therapy is different from normal yoga
How Yoga Therapy is different?
In many yoga schools, teachers focus is on imparting yogic lessons. Class as a whole benefits from the yoga poses. It might not be tailored to meet the individualist need. For instance, if someone is facing chronic pain, teachers would only prescribe the asanas which are suitable for all and not specifically target the chronic pain. But in the yoga therapy session, special attention will be given to the person having pain. All efforts will be made to provide relief to the person who is suffering from pain.
Doctors recommend yoga therapy in case of profound issue and the individual is not able to manage properly, but even if the condition is mild, people can opt for yoga therapy to get relief.
How does the training of a yoga therapist different from others?
A yoga therapist requires more training than a normal yogi would be requiring, in fact even more than 500 hours. A Yoga therapy training programs are run with the help of medical professionals, psychologists, neuroscientists and doctors, they can also provide knowledge of anatomy to the students in a context of yoga, the impact of applied physical therapy, medicine, and mental health etc.
Ultimately it is an experience that matters while dealing with the range of medical conditions, the ultimate purpose is to replace the modern medicine, work with it and also offer an alternative solution to help people recover.
