What is Trauma Sensitive Yoga?
Anything from sexual abuse to military combat can trigger trauma, causing nightmares and flashbacks, isolation and irritation, which further elevate stress levels. The brain’s preoccupation with fear and self-preservation means staying in the present feels like an impossible challenge. The sufferer gets stuck in the past, unable to feel respond to current circumstances, or move forwards.
By focusing on the breath and slow movements, Trauma Sensitive Yoga gives the sufferer a safe space in which to feel comfortable and grow strong. Working on the fight or flight sympathetic nervous system, this type of yoga practice will enable the parasympathetic nervous system to prevail – calming and restoring, lowering the heart rate and blood pressure, and enabling the possibility of relaxation.
Once this practice of breath, postures and relaxation have laid stable physiological foundations the practice of meditation or mindfulness may be introduced. Observation of the internal experience without getting too involved in it modulates fear and helps us stay present.
Go to Trauma Sensitive Yoga if you want:
Physical yoga poses
Relaxation
Breathing exercises
Gentle exercise
Physical therapy
Emotionally restorative yoga
Personalised practice
Breath-synchronised movement
Meditation
Self-inquiry
Whole life
Watch a Trauma Sensitive Yoga class
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Lucy Edge
is a yoga advocate and writer with three yoga books to her name, including the beloved travel memoir Yoga School Dropout. She writes regularly for the national press, has authored over 150 guides to types of yoga and yoga poses, discovered nearly 250 proven health benefits of yoga through her painstaking classification of 300 clinical studies, and collected more than 500 personal testimonials to the real life benefits of yoga. She is also the creator of our yoga shop – YogaClicks.Store – handpicking yoga brands that are beautifully made by yogis committed to environmental and social sustainability.
