By Jay Polish, Bustle, August 18, 2019
Whether you’ve never tried yoga or are deeply into your practice, you probably know that yoga has an intense way of integrating your body’s movements with your mind’s inner chatter. For some, that connection facilitates a sense of calm and restoration. For others, that peace seems far away, if not impossible, and yoga classes offer more fear than relief. When yoga calls unexpected attention to your mind and body — and when it involves subtle competition with and potential touch from strangers — it can actually be re-traumatizing for people with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). However, the increasing practice of trauma-sensitive yoga is a safer, more supportive practice for all people.
When someone is living with PTSD, their body-mind connection is wired into a state of persistent fight, flight, or freeze. In other words, their body is always hyper-vigilant, ready to protect itself against danger that it might not realize has already passed. Many yoga classes can inadvertently trigger this re-traumatization in people. And according to Annie Okerlin, founder of the Exalted Warrior Foundation, which facilitates adaptive yoga instruction for wounded veterans, “If there is a 'no pain no gain' mentality [in your yoga practice] it will increase [your] current dis-regulation and the system will not have a chance to reset.”
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