YOGA AS THERAPY

Yoga is beneficial for the health in ways that modern science is just beginning to understand. Even though it has been applied with therapeutic intention for thousand of years, yoga therapy is only just now emerging as a discipline in itself. More health care practitioners are starting to include yogic techniques in their approach to healing and more yoga teachers give a therapeutic intention to their teaching. People who have never tried yoga before are starting to consider including.

Yoga in their treatment plan. Yoga therapy is created by the merging of traditional yoga with modern medicine. Medical assessments are considered in order to adapt yoga practices to individual needs. This approach makes yoga therapy more effective than general yoga practice for people who seek to treat specific medical conditions through yoga.

Yoga therapy can be applied to treat a wide range of physical and mental-emotional conditions. For structural problems like low back pain, arthritis and shoulder pain; for respiratory problems such as asthma and for many other common health conditions such as multiple sclerosis, anxiety, depression, obesity, chronic fatigue syndrome etc.

Yoga therapy has been applied in hospitals in India for some time now and medical research has been providing increasing evidence to support its efficacy. In USA and Europe now, dedicated and respected yoga therapy centres are developing. There are professional trainings available in yoga therapy and some general practitioners will refer patients for yoga therapy. 

Yoga therapy can be practiced alongside any other form of treatment or healing that a person may opt for, from mainstream medical treatment to acupuncture, homeopathy, osteopathy and dietary therapy. 
Yoga therapy trainings sometimes specialize in one area of yoga therapy such as structural yoga therapy, yoga therapy for depression, or yoga therapy for cancer and/or heart disease. Yoga therapy of all types generally incorporates some lifestyle advice and nutritional recommendation.