Yoga Therapy harnesses the healing technologies of yoga, meditation, and mindfulness to improve physical health and mental wellbeing. Yoga therapists support you in exploring a personal relationship with mind-body practice that addresses and accommodates your own physical and psychological needs.
Yoga therapists often prescribe specific practices or practice regimens that treat specific health conditions or help you to advance towards specific wellness goals or practice aspirations. Stretching and tension-release practices, mindful strength-building, breath-work, relaxation techniques, postural education, meditation practices, and development of self-compassion and self-supportive lifestyle habits are among the many mind-body interventions that might be explored in yoga therapy.
Unlike a group class setting, you will work one-on-one with a highly skilled teacher who can support you on your personal journey into the healing benefits of yoga as it relates specifically to your own unique body, heart, and mind. You yourself are the most important guide as we shape the practice to fit YOU.
Yoga does not require physical fitness or flexibility. Despite how it is often portrayed in popular media, yoga has little to do with physical feats of strength or twisting your body into exotic poses. Yoga is a system of healing and self-care and personal awakening. If you can breathe, you can do yoga!
The Sanskrit word yoga comes from the root word yujir, meaning “to yoke” or to unite, describing the human journey towards wholeness. Mind-body practice is about integrating and more fully expressing body and mind, grief and joy, struggle and strength, self-power and community-power. Yoga is a practical technology for generating a greater sense of peace and well-being in our lives.
Evidence-based research ranks yoga and meditation among the most effective preventative and complementary therapies alongside traditional western medicine. A strongly emerging field in self-care, wellness, and disease prevention, yoga therapy endeavors to support and strengthen the whole person. Mainstream initiatives like Dr. Dean Ornish’s Lifestyle Management Program place yoga and mindfulness front and center as integral tools in shaping healthier lifestyles, reducing stress and inflammation that contribute to chronic illness, and providing relief and accelerated healing for acute or chronic injury or ill-health, whether physical or emotional.
I have been working as a yoga therapist for nearly a decade with clients of all ages, backgrounds, and experience levels and have identified three primary approaches to individual yoga therapy sessions. Sometimes a client’s needs and goals fall neatly into one category and other times a combination of the three can best address the whole picture.
Yoga Therapy for Mental Health & Healing the Nervous System. As someone with a personal and family history of trauma and mental health challenges, the life-changing benefits of mind-body practice is what inspired me to become a yoga therapist. Gentle yoga, breath-work, qigong, and meditation foster positive neuroplasticity: the life-changing power to regulate and calm the nervous system, to change how we relate to stress, to reduce symptoms of chronic illness, to transform fixed psychological patterns, and to foster the right conditions to experience more self-compassion, inner peace, and joy. These practices teach us how to access and nurture our inner resources and wisdom, how to return to center in the face of adversity, how to move through grief and trauma, and how to nurture overall resilience and a better quality of life towards long-term healing. Deep Rest and Sound Healing sessions also fall nicely into this category.
Yoga Therapy for Physical Health / Supporting the Body. Yoga is like an owner’s manual for the body. Through practice, we can learn how to relieve pain and tension, aid recovery from injury or illness, manage or relieve chronic health issues, improve circulation of blood, lymph and synovial fluid, care for our joints, improve and maintain flexibility and mobility, strengthen coordination and balance, nurture respiratory and digestive health, sharpen memory and mental focus, reduce blood pressure and inflammation, increase strength and bone density, regulate the nervous system, relieve back and neck pain, and learn to make healthy posture our second nature. And that’s the short list! Individual yoga therapy sessions are an ideal way to identify specific and precise practices that best support your personal needs and wellness goals.
Private Instruction for Deepening Your Relationship with Mind-Body Practice. Individual sessions are an ideal way to study and explore mind-body practices with a highly skilled and knowledgeable teacher. You might be totally new to yoga or interested in trying out meditation or tai chi, but you would rather begin your journey in a one-on-one atmosphere. You could be an experienced yogi or meditator who would like to refresh, deepen, or hone your practice. There are few things I love more in this world than working one-on-one to support and reinforce an individual’s relationship with their personal practice.
Examples of Conditions Treated by Jenne Sluder Yoga Therapy
Memory Loss / Brain Fog / Concentration Issues
Chronic Pain
Injury Recovery
Generalized Anxiety
Difficulty with Balance
PTSD / Complex PTSD
Shallow Breathing / Improving Respiratory Capacity
Asthma & other reactive airway conditions
PVFM & Vocal Cord Dysfunction
Chronic Fatigue Syndrome
Back Pain / Neck Pain
Surgery Recovery
Social Anxiety Disorder
Depression
Bipolar
Major Life Transition
Stress Reduction
Codependency
Self-Judgment
Building New Habits
Anger Management
Arthritis
Osteopenia / Osteoporosis
Piriformis Syndrome
Joint Pain
Disordered Eating
Addiction & Recovery
Domestic Abuse Recovery
Self-Discovery
Grief Work
Parkinson’s Disease
Alzheimer’s Disease
Attention Deficit Disorder & ADHD
Fibromyalgia
Nervous System Health
Covid-19 Long-Haul Syndrome
Irritable Bowel Syndrome
Acute Illness Recovery
Chronic Illness Management
RSD & Complex Regional Pain Syndrome
Mindful Strength-Building
Core Strength
Posture / Structural Alignment
Improve Circulation
Kyphosis
Sciatica pain
Sacroiliac Joint pain
Spinal Fusion
Scoliosis
Hip / Knee / Shoulder Replacement
Mobility issues
Blood Pressure Management
Flexibility
Coordination
The sanity of the body is the sanity of the mind.
thich nhat hanh
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