Yoga Counseling: Helping complex mental health symptoms by improving the mind-body connection

In yoga counseling, we approach healing from complex mental health symptoms (like anxiety + depression + trauma) by helping you improve your mind-body connection.

How many of these things sound like something you would say?

• "The smallest things make me cry."
• "I can't seem to have lasting relationships."
• "My whole life is spent trying to make things perfect."
• "I feel grouchy so much of the time."
• "I don't have any friends that really care about me."
• "How do you even relax?"
• "I can't even remember the last time I laughed out loud."
• "Can I punch something?"
• "Meh. I just feel so numb that I don't even care."
• "I over-think everything possible."

Most people identify with at least a couple of these statements. Who doesn't have at least one or two areas of their life that are a struggle? Does anyone even have perfect mental health?

However, when most areas of your life make you feel like you're struggling to trudge through mud, it could be time to address the problems as whole. It may be a sign that you have a complex set of mental health issues.

Are you experiencing complex mental health issues?

People who suffer from complex mental health issues often have a wide variety of problems in functioning across all parts of their lives.  The impact is across multiple life areas and could look like:

• Difficult relationships
• Under performing at work or school
• Financial problems
• Poor physical health

Common signs and symptoms

People who are experiencing complex mental health issues often have multiple signs and symptoms. Some common signs and symptoms include:

• feel alienated and disconnected from their body
• have a reduced capacity to be present in the here and now
• feel constantly on alert or on guard
• rarely, if ever, fully relaxed
• have difficulty focusing one one thing at a time
• engage in high-risk behaviors
• get easily overwhelmed
• feel out of control
• have negative thoughts about their bodies
• difficult to control impulses and emotions
• experience a variety of illnesses
• over-react to minor stresses
• numb themselves with drugs or alcohol
• harm self to feel something
• feel unsafe in their bodies

If you have multiple symptoms and multiple life problems, you likely have complex mental health issues.

Why yoga counseling?

When your mental health issues are complex, they impact several parts of your life at once. Often this complexity is challenging to treat. Because of this, it makes sense to approach the solution through a mind-body approach. Yoga counseling can provide a structure and starting point  and outlet for the physical, psychological, and emotional.

Scientific Support for Yoga Benefits

While yoga has been practiced for thousands of years, science has more recently helped us understand why. Yoga impacts every system in the body to optimize health. More and more, science has supported the benefits of yoga in for multiple mental health concerns, including:

• stress
• anxiety
• quality of life
• depression
• sleep quality
• Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)

Yoga Counseling

People who have complex mental health symptoms often report feelings of helplessness. In yoga counseling, we help empower them to gain greater control over their bodies in a safe space.

In most sessions, yoga counseling still looks a lot like traditional talk therapy. Talk therapy can help you process emotions, identify unhealthy patterns, learn new ways to cope with life's challenges, and find new ways to think about what's going on in your life. However, when people are overwhelmed and feel disconnected from their inner experiences, they often don't have the skills to tolerate much emotional exploration.

In yoga counseling, we bring in some yoga basics like mindful attention, focused breathing, and physical postures. We use the body purposely to strengthen the mind-body connection, build self-regulation skills, and address how the body holds feelings. This part of the session may last only a few minutes and can come with homework for you to do on your own at home.

In yoga counseling, we help you work toward feeling calm, appreciating your body, accepting yourself, and improving your relationships.

Additional Reading:

• Moss, E. (2020). Why your mind-body connection matters when you have anxiety, depression, or trauma.

References:

• 13 Benefits of Yoga that are Supported by Science 
• Emerson, D. (2015) Trauma-Sensitive Yoga in Therapy: Bringing the Body Into Treatment. WW Norton & Company: New York.
• Emerson, D. & Hopper, E. (2011) Overcoming Trauma through Yoga: Reclaiming Your Body. North Atlantic Books: Berkeley.
• Swanson, A. (2019) Science of Yoga: Understand the Anatomy and Physiology to Perfect your Practice. DK Publishing: New York.
• Van der Kolk, B. (2014) The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma. Penguin Books: New York.
• Yoga for posttraumatic stress disorder: a systematic review and meta-analysis