Why Is Yoga Therapy Relevant in Healthcare?

“Yoga therapy consists of the application of yogic principles, methods, and techniques to specific human ailments. In its ideal application, yoga therapy is preventive in nature, as is Yoga itself, but it is also restorative in many instances, palliative in others, and curative in many others.”

– Art Brownstein, MD, for the International Association of Yoga Therapists (IAYT)

 

Yoga therapy’s offerings can benefit healthcare practitioners both professionally and personally. This article will discuss both aspects. Across domains, from reducing depression, anxiety, and chronic pain to improving self-care habits and quality of life, yoga therapy  has emerged as a valuable complementary modality in healthcare settings. With an expanded scope of practice including yoga therapy skills, healthcare professionals can champion wellbeing for their patients, their colleagues, and themselves. 

Potential Benefits of Yoga and Yoga Therapy for Healthcare

 

• By tailoring yoga’s tools of posture, breathing, mindfulness, meditation, and reflection to an individual, yoga therapy can affect physical functioning and nervous system regulation, and can leverage neuroplasticity and mind-body bidirectionality toward whole-person improvements in wellbeing and quality of life
• Bring person-centred, biopsychosocial approaches to numerous conditions
• Reduce demand on healthcare systems by helping people manage stress and make habit changes to prevent or remediate lifestyle-related diseases
• Provide health professionals with yoga skills to care for themselves and each other as well as patients

 

International Recognition of Yoga’s Value to Health

 

Around the world, clinicians and yoga professionals have built networks to promote the integration of yoga into health systems, and those in power have begun to listen. Here are a few examples:

 

• The NHS (UK National Health Service) acknowledges yoga’s benefits, cost-effectiveness, and ease of use. 
• The NHS includes yoga as an option for low back pain.
• YIHA (Yoga in Healthcare Alliance), organised by Minded Institute founder Heather Mason, created the Yoga4Health social prescription programme as commissioned by the NHS. 
• The NIH (US National Institutes of Health) promotes yoga for general wellness, quality of life, mental health, pain management, and other issues. 
• The US Department of Veterans Affairs recommends yoga as a component of veteran care. 
• Medicare (US federal health insurance for senior citizens) covers reimbursement for the yoga-based Ornish programme of cardiac rehabilitation. 
• The Canadian Network for Mood and Anxiety Treatments (CANMAT) guidelines, the world’s leading clinical guidelines for depression, have recommended a patient-centred approach including yoga for major depressive disorder. 
• The Indian Ministry of Ayurveda and Naturopathy, Yoga, Unani, Siddha and Homeopathy (AYUSH) supports yoga research and integration of yoga into health systems, education, and public life.
• The WHO and the UN have recognised yoga’s potential to promote wellbeing and to reduce the global burden of chronic conditions.

How Yoga Can Enhance Professional Healthcare Practice

 

As current-day health consequences of infotech hyper-saturation and social disconnection become ever clearer, caring professions increasingly call for biopsychosocial and patient-centred care. Yoga’s mind-body practices can present a unique whole-person approach. Below are several ways that yoga teachers and yoga therapists can promote this approach in healthcare.

 

What yoga teachers can offer: 

• General classes to promote positive health 
• Specialised classes (after extended training) such as the YIHA social prescription Yoga4Health programme or the Healthy Lower Backs self-management programme
• Limited scope without the training to tailor practices for individuals, especially those with multiple conditions or unusual situations

 

What yoga therapists can offer: 

• Bespoke one-to-one whole-person care with a wider scope than yoga teachers, with training in assessment of individual abilities, needs, and contraindications
• Care that addresses all dimensions: physical, energetic, sensory, emotional, social, intellectual, and spiritual (aligning well with biopsychosocial-spiritual models)
• Therapeutic relationship development, continuity of care, and reflection on patient’s personal values, impossible in most healthcare structures due to time constraints 

With yoga teacher training: 

• • Basic yoga techniques that may help with specific symptoms or with general purposes such as stress management

With yoga therapy training: 

• Full integration of yoga into clinical work for person-centred holistic care
• Wider scope than yoga therapists due to healthcare qualifications 
• Expanded healthcare scope for treating the whole person rather than reducing the patient to their main presenting problem, especially in cases of multiple conditions [1]
• Ability to incorporate yoga skills to address biopsychosocial aspects of conditions such as low back pain, high blood pressure, or cancer
• Ability, with further specialised training, to bring yoga safely into treatments for complex conditions such as eating disorders or PTSD  
• Possibility of shifting to a yoga therapy career in support of patients, colleagues, or community

Healthcare Champions for Yoga 

Physicians are becoming increasingly interested in yoga therapy because they see a need for holistic person-centred care not best met by current medical models. [2] This interest has driven a significant rise in yoga’s integration into physicians’ practices, and yoga is being established in other healthcare disciplines as well. Here are some examples: 

• Gradual integration of yoga therapy into the NHS, as a cost-effective preventive measure to reduce the burden of non-communicable diseases on the UK health system, progresses through efforts such as YIHA.
• The Yoga Biomedical Trust promotes yoga therapy research and provides guidance for patients and health professionals concerned with various conditions but especially back pain and sciatica.
• The Minded Institute provides NCIP-accredited integrative yoga psychotherapy training. 
• MediYoga (Sweden) brings yoga training to healthcare professionals and yoga into hospitals. 
• The Swami Vivekananda Yoga Anusandhana Samsthana (SVYASA) Yoga University (India) conducts yoga therapy research, provides higher education in yoga therapy, and collaborates with the Arogyadhama Holistic Health Home, a residential yoga therapy treatment centre directed by a medical doctor with deep yoga therapy knowledge and experience.
• MD Anderson, the world-renowned American cancer research and treatment centre, features yoga therapy prominently in its Department of Integrative Medicine and conducts yoga therapy research in cancer care. Many of their employed and contracted yoga therapists trained with SVYASA or SVYASA USA. 
• The American Psychological Association has touted the growing evidence base for yoga as a complement to psychotherapy while cautioning that professional training is needed for safe implementation with patients. 
• Social work students at Western Michigan University have called for raising awareness and education about yoga therapy in their curriculum. 

Who Is Using Yoga in Clinical Settings?

A 2022 descriptive study, The Use of Yoga in Clinical Practice, surveyed 205 US health professionals who use yoga in clinical settings. These professionals included:

• Occupational therapists
• Yoga therapists
• Physiotherapists
• Recreational therapists
• Social workers
• Physicians
• Nurses
• Psychologists
• Speech and language pathologists

 

Settings in which they used yoga included:

• Outpatient rehabilitation 
• Community-based programs
• Psychiatric care
• Skilled nursing facilities
• Corrections facilities
• Military facilities
• Private practice  

 

Conditions and populations they served with yoga included:

• Chronic pain 
• Arthritis
• Mental health issues
• Substance use disorders
• Eating disorders
• Diabetes
• Stroke, traumatic brain injuries
• Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, multiple sclerosis, other neurological conditions
• Intellectual developmental disability
• Cancer, lymphoedema
• Cardiovascular disease, pulmonary disorders
• Inflammatory bowel disease
• Women’s health, hormonal imbalances
• Orthopaedic and musculoskeletal conditions, scoliosis 
• Youth (0-18)
• Adults (19-65)
• Older adults (65+)

An important highlight is the recommendation of yoga for veteran populations by the US government’s Department of Veterans Affairs, which represents a huge stride forward for the integration of yoga into healthcare. Yoga is included as an evidence-based complementary and integrative health approach available in veterans’ medical benefits packages. Yoga tools are used to help veterans with many conditions, especially chronic low back pain, fall risk, depression, anxiety, PTSD, and insomnia. 

 

How to Bring Yoga into a Clinical Setting

 

Many clinicians recognise the potential benefit of holistic care, and may have some modality training in one or two complementary tools (for example, dry needling or box breathing), but also can see the possibility of doing more. One way to reach this potential is by undergoing professional training in how to implement a multidimensional yoga therapy plan appropriate for the whole person. 

 

Especially with the current rise of trauma awareness, clinicians are becoming increasingly conscientious about guarding their patients’ psychological safety and wellbeing as well as physical health. Because many yoga practices can act on a deep level to affect the nervous system, professional training in yoga therapy is essential for safely incorporating yoga practices into healthcare settings. 

 

The Minded Institute offers one of the world’s most comprehensive yoga therapy trainings available to both yoga and health professionals as well as short courses in yoga therapy and yoga skills for qualified healthcare professionals. Details for both types of courses will be given below. These courses are excellent options for diving into a health profession that can increase or merge with pre-existing skills. They focus on patient safety and academic and empirical knowledge along with techniques for delivering the potential benefits of yoga for whole-person wellbeing. 

 

Similarly to The Minded Institute, the International Association of Yoga Therapists (IAYT) has recently developed an educational pathway for qualified healthcare professionals, with its first accredited QHP programme at YogaX of Stanford University School of Medicine in California. 

 

What Does Yoga Look Like in the Clinic?

 

The descriptive study mentioned above revealed how the clinician participants provided yoga. [2] Some examples of practical tips include:

 

• Using terminology appropriate to the patient, group, and location (e.g. using English rather than Sanskrit terms, using alternatives to “yoga” such as embodiment, mindfulness practice, body-based therapy, etc.)
• Documenting sessions, practices, and patient experiences (done in various ways but often in SOAP format)
• Assessing and working within the patient’s level of openness and willingness to engage with unfamiliar practices or concepts
• Informing clinical decision-making with formal and informal assessments and discussions with the patient about their needs and preferences 
• Tailoring the environment, themes, sessions, and practices to the individual patient’s needs, limitations, sensitivities, and preferences
• Modifying practices for safety and accessibility for the individual
• Meeting the patient “where they are”, making room for fun and enjoyment, and ending sessions on a positive note
• Basing plans on clinical reasoning with an intentional focus on the purpose of each practice or recommendation as it relates to the individual person (not just to a condition or symptom)
• Maintaining a personal yoga practice for authentic understanding of the practices and of patient experiences

 

The Scope of Yoga Therapy in Healthcare

 

Whilst yoga therapists have a wider scope than general yoga teachers, they lack the training to act as qualified healthcare professionals, so they are prohibited from certain activities. Yoga therapists’ scope of practice is limited in the following ways:

 

• Not qualified to diagnose conditions or write medical prescriptions

• Not qualified to address acute or severe medical or psychiatric conditions (unless having undergone extended specialised training) 
• Not qualified to engage in psychotherapeutic work (unless having trained as an integrative psychotherapist) 

 

In order to guard client safety and preserve the integrity of the field, the IAYT’s published scope of practice limits yoga therapists to providing practices and recommendations within the purview of yogic knowledge. For example, a yoga therapist may recommend a diet of fresh, easily digestible, whole foods based on yoga philosophy’s concepts of purity and energy management, but they may not prescribe specific foods unless they are also a qualified dietitian. It is easy to see how a yoga therapy-trained healthcare professional could offer an exceptionally beneficial scope of practice for patients and clients across multiple domains.

 

Another practical limitation of yoga and yoga therapy in healthcare is the scarcity of funding for research, education, and provision. Connected to this is the relative lack of rigorous clinical research into yoga’s mechanisms and efficacy for specific conditions, although the evidence base is continuously growing. Many researchers support the creation of guidelines for yoga research, and in recent years strides have been made, such as the CLARIFY (CheckList stAndardising the Reporting of Interventions For Yoga) guidelines.

 

Although there are no standardised national healthcare guidelines specifically for yoga, organisations such as the IAYT, the British Council for Yoga Therapy, and the Society for Integrative Oncology have worked toward developing best practices. This has been effortful partly due to the wide variety of theories and methods amongst different yoga traditions, models, and schools.

The Role of Social-Emotional Factors in Yoga 

 

A major reason that yoga is difficult to standardise is that it simultaneously affects multiple aspects of human functioning and experience, so each person-centred session will look different from others. Nonetheless, qualitative research shows that the importance of yoga’s social-emotional component cannot be overstated, especially in its reciprocal relationship with physical health. 

 

Looking at the reciprocal relationship between physical and social-emotional health, key findings from the evaluation of the Yoga4Health protocol reveal this component’s essential role in their positive outcomes. Here are some examples:

• “Statistically significant and clinically meaningful decreases in perceived stress, anxiety, and depression” [3]
• Significant improvements in motivation and confidence for self-managing health
• Significant rise in Patient Activation Measure (PAM) for a majority of patients
• Significant increase in social connectedness
• Rise in sense of wellbeing, life satisfaction, purpose, and happiness
• Meaningful improvements in physical health

 

Yoga, even within its own moderate scope, can potentially offer health systems benefits inherent to programmes that centre on social-emotional wellbeing, as shown again by the Yoga4Health programme in its role as a social prescribing scheme. [3] According to the British Medical Association, social prescribing can improve patient self-care, which in turn can lead to:

• Decreased GP consultations
• Decreased outpatient appointments 
• Decreased admissions to hospital and presentations to A&E
• Decreased need for medical prescription

 

Personal Benefits of Yoga for Healthcare Professionals

 

As well as a tool for patient care, yoga can be an equally beneficial self-care practice for healthcare professionals themselves. According to a 2023 study, Stressors Among Healthcare Workers, health personnel undergo “high stress and burnout, at rates up to 70%, hindering patient care”. Long work hours and demanding multi-faceted duties, combined with altruistic tendencies and family expectations, commonly lead to stress and eventually to the psycho-physical depletion of burnout, which drains the ability to adapt to stress. 

 

To prevent burnout and the damage it causes to physical and mental health, healthcare workers are strongly encouraged to maintain a yoga practice for managing stress. A 2019 review from the US National Library of Medicine, The Use of Yoga to Manage Stress and Burnout in Healthcare Workers, confirms that yoga can help not only to enhance personal wellbeing but also to sustain workplace performance. 

 

“In addition to an improvement in physical problems and in quality of sleep, both stress levels and burnout are consistently reduced in subjects who practise yoga techniques and mind-body meditation.”

 

Trainings at The Minded Institute can provide not only professional skills and tools for assisting others, but also personal guidance for working toward self-discovery and self-healing. Helping patients through yoga could motivate professionals to maintain their own self-care. Only by caring for ourselves can we sustain our ability to serve others. 

 

If you are a healthcare worker, we are here to support you in bringing yoga into your work and life. If you know a healthcare worker who could find yoga useful professionally or personally, please share the above studies and the below Minded courses with them.

 

 

Why Choose The Minded Institute?

 

At The Minded Institute, we have long had a vested interest in the incorporation of yoga into healthcare and have geared our trainings toward this end, leading to the development of our full yoga therapy training course specifically for healthcare personnel. Our training in yoga tradition and technique is intertwined with in-depth education in neuroscience, psychoneuroimmunology, psychophysiology, and psychotherapeutic clinical skills. All of our chief faculty are dually trained as yoga therapists and healthcare or mental healthcare providers. 

Minded is the only yoga therapy training organisation in the world to be accredited by the International Association of Yoga Therapists (IAYT), the British Council for Yoga Therapy (BCYT), and the UK’s National Council of Integrative Psychotherapists (NCIP). Our courses blend up-to-date research and best practices with time-honoured yogic and Buddhist traditional wisdom, all underpinned by therapeutic principles, virtue ethics, and a firm commitment to diversity and inclusivity. Additionally, all courses are open to international trainees who can attend all short courses online and most of the full yoga therapy diploma course online.  

Minded Courses for Healthcare Professionals 

In their own ways, our full yoga therapy diploma and our short courses both offer guiding principles and specific techniques for working holistically with patients and integrating yoga into clinical practice. Recommendations are supported by scientific research and by the expert faculty’s extensive experience in yoga therapy, therapeutic relationships, individualised whole-person care, safety and appropriateness of practices, and yoga’s benefits for a wide range of health conditions from chronic pain and depression to cardiovascular disease and cancer. 

Yoga Therapy Diploma

Minded has long recognised the need for health professionals to become yoga professionals, just as the IAYT is increasingly recognising. Track 2 of our two-year 600-hour Yoga Therapy Professional Diploma offers qualified medical and mental health professionals the chance to gain a diploma in yoga therapy (accredited by the NCIP) without the requirement of any previous yoga teacher training. Minded has set a standard for dedication with its three-year personal yoga practice requirement, so applicants will be ready to dive deep into the training.

Basic Yoga Techniques for Healthcare Professionals 

This one-day workshop, led by Accessible Chair Yoga co-founder Liz Oppedijk, offers simple and effective yoga techniques that can be used for oneself and for patients, staff members, residents, and relatives.

This course is for healthcare professionals and care workers across disciplines, including:

 

• Physicians
• Nurses
• Physiotherapists
• Occupational therapists
• Osteopaths
• Psychiatrists
• Clinical psychologists
• Psychotherapists
• Counsellors
• Social workers
• Carers
• Care staff
• Community workers

 

The Minded Institute also offers other short courses and workshops open to yoga and healthcare professionals, as well as seminars and yoga therapy observations for those wishing to learn more about the field. 

 

Contact us at info@themindedinstitute.com if you are unsure of your eligibility for joining a course. We are here to support you on your journey.

 

Hear from a Healthcare Professional

 

As I expected, the Minded yoga therapy course was academically demanding given the emphasis it places on an evidence-informed approach. What I enjoyed most was its basis in the yoga tradition such that you are encouraged to question and learn from experience, stimulating personal growth. Lifelong friends are made with fellow trainees that enrich the journey, and Heather Mason, the director, is a tour de force navigating how to integrate these teachings into our current healthcare system, which in my opinion is strongly needed.

–Sonali Sudarshi, NHS General Practitioner

References

[1] Sudarshi, S. (2024). How yoga therapy might save General Practice, particularly in the care of patients who are living with long term conditions [unpublished academic research essay]. Yoga Therapy Professional Diploma Program, The Minded Institute.

[2] Adams, E.V. et al. (2022). The use of yoga in clinical practice: A descriptive study. OBM Integrative and Complementary Medicine 7(2), 020. doi:10.21926/obm.icm.2202020.

[3] Mason, H. & Paul, F. (2022). Yoga on prescription: The Yoga4Health social prescribing protocol. Jessica Kingsley Publishers.