Holiday Newsletter & Special Gift for You

I want to share something personal before I offer you a gift that I hope will be a window through pain for you, as it has been for me. Pain…
More »
I want to share something personal before I offer you a gift that I hope will be a window through pain for you, as it has been for me. Pain…
More »
In this newsletter, we report on important research about the benefits of yoga for schizophrenia. There are also two studies that look at the benefits of yoga for inmates in prison, a review of a new book by Anodea Judith, PhD, and a new yoga curriculum for Jewish children. There is also news about the next residential LifeForce Yoga Practitioner Training.
Read about new research on the anti-inflammatory effects of yoga practice and a study about how the brain responds to meditation. We gather the latest studies on yoga and mental health as well as reviews of new books—one beautiful enough to grace your coffee table by master yoga therapist and Ayurvedic clinician Indu Aurora, and another to keep on your bookshelf, especially if you want to work with expressive arts and yoga therapy.
This week’s blog post is another poetry collection written by Amy Weintraub. We hope these words touch and inspire your practice or your own creative writing. …
More »
Research on Yoga as the BEST mood booster for cancer patients, and reviews of three Yoga Therapy books with chapters by Amy Weintraub
In this issue, we write about a study that attends to the subtler effects of meditation, asking how brain science can answer the question of how detachment and empathy might both be benefits of the practice. We also report on another prenatal yoga study coming from Brown University and Butler Hospital with encouraging news for pregnant women suffering from depression.
In this issue, we review several new books that are important in the field of yoga and mental health. Guest LifeForce Yoga Practitioner reviewers Anne Friedenheim, Ellen Campbell, and Sherry Rubin reviewed books by Rama Jyoti Vernon, the master yoga teacher, who has finally graced us with the wisdom of her many years of study and practice, Beth Gibbs, a senior teacher trainer in the Integrative Yoga Therapy Training Program, who writes two books—one for young children, and the other a manual for those who love them, and psychologist and meditation teacher Elisha Goldstein. I am honored to review the new book by Richard Miller, who despite his years of scholarship, clinical work and the depth of his study in yoga, writes an accessible meditation manual for those who have experienced trauma.
I am proud to see that LifeForce Yoga Practitioners like Dr. Patricia Kinser at Virginia Commonwealth University and colleagues like Dr. Sat Bir Khalsa at Brigham and Women’s Hospital Harvard University and the International Association of Yoga Therapists are taking the lead in this research, and that my colleagues at Kripalu and elsewhere have developed effective secular yoga protocols for class room settings.
In addition to the research reviewed below, I also love reading and reviewing new books and CDs about yoga and mental health, and it was a thrill to resonate so deeply with Dr. Bessel van der Kolk’s new book, The Body Keeps the Score. LifeForce Yoga Director of Education Rose Kress reviews Dr. Lisa Ferentz’s new trauma survivors’ workbook and a new CD by Jeanne Dillion
Below, we have research on Yoga and bipolar disorder from Brown University and Butler Hospital and new research showing yoga helped female patients with Multiple Sclerosis improve their mental and physical health.
Read reviews by me of Shema Meditation through the Chakras DVD by Robin Rothenberg, Kabalah Yoga: Awaken Your Soul and Kabalah Yoga: Mystic Flow 2 Practice DVDs by Audi Gozlan, Ph.D., and Awakening: Aspiration to Realization Through Integral Yoga a book by Swami Karunananda.
Debbie Lubetkin, PsyD, LFYP-2 reviews Freud and Yoga, Two Philosophies of the Mind Compared by D.K.V. Desikachar and Helfried Krusche.
Rose Kress, RYT-500, LFYP-2 reviews Survivors on the Yoga Mat: Stories for Those Healing from Trauma by Becky Thomas.
Two important studies in this summary of current research on yoga and mental health demand special attention. I’m thrilled to report the outcome of a study that looks at trauma informed yoga as an intervention for treatment-resistant PTSD. I’m also pleased to analyze here why a gentle stretching intervention likely surprised the study authors when it was shown to be more effective than a restorative yoga practice for a group suffering from a metabolic syndrome caused by stress. There’s also a report on a study demonstrating yoga’s effectiveness for pain that indicates actual brain changes, and good news for yoga in the schools.
Ahhhhhh! Here we are, summer at last. No research this time. Just a couple of book recommendations as you settle into the hammock. If you’re feeling stressed, despite the good…
More »
Read on for a review of another great resource for kids and their parents and educators, and for more validation for why we do what we do.