Exciting news! The BBC just published an article on the incredible health benefits of yoga, including its neurological impact on improving mental health.
Heather shared why yoga and yoga therapy need to be accessible through the NHS, given their proven effectiveness in mental health care. Rachel Bliski, Minded Institute lecturer and PTSD services manager, was also featured, offering her expertise.
Here is a piece from the article:
“I didn’t want to go on. Life was too difficult,” says Heather Mason, founder of yoga therapy training school The Minded Institute. “Yoga transformed my life – helping me manage depression, anxiety and PTSD.”
AlamyAfter experiencing the profound effects of yoga, Mason went on to train in yoga, psychotherapy and neuroscience, before founding her yoga therapy training school in 2009. “I felt there were a lot of claims [about yoga] that were made that had no substantiated evidence. And when you have been hopeless for most of your life, you don’t want to be peddled something that might work,” she says.
Mason now trains health and yoga professionals in yoga therapy. “I realised that there was an accessibility problem,” she says. “[Yoga] is marketed is for young, white, skinny women. If you don’t see yourself reflected within this practice, you may not think it’s for you.”
It can be expensive, too, she adds, “This is why I am so dead set on its integration into the NHS [the UK’s National Health System].” Plus, people with mental health issues can often struggle to engage in self-care, she explains. “They have to be motivated to do it. I thought, if we can bring it into the medical paradigm – all that will change.”
This is another step forward in recognising yoga’s role in mental health and moving towards its wider integration into healthcare.
Check out the article here: and share it widely. Let’s keep the conversation going.
#YogaForMentalHealth #YogaTherapy #MindedInstitute #BBCNews #MentalHealthMatters
