Yoga for Trauma and PTSD

Healing Through Yoga

A practice to reduce the effects of trauma and PTSD for adults and children

Healing Through Yoga is a practice to reduce the effects of trauma and PTSD for adults and children.


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Yoga is not a replacement for psychotherapy but can greatly benefit clients through:

  • Exercise
  • Relaxation
  • Deep Breathing
  • Support of spiritual practices and beliefs
  • Community

Group Sessions

These sessions provide a trauma-sensitive yoga practice oriented toward the needs of each individual in a safe, gentle and non-judgmental environment that encourages healing and self study. Day and evening options available. Call 217-698-8177 for the current schedule or check our Class Schedule page.

Individual Therapy

Individual sessions are available upon request.

Please call us for more information. 217-698-8177.

Pre-Screening is required. Call 217-698-8177 to set up your appointment.

Research increasingly supports Yoga as an effective treatment for trauma and PTSD. Yoga practices including meditation, relaxation, and asanas (postures) reduce muscle tension, blood pressure, and improve neuro-endrocrine and hormonal activity. Physical symptoms and emotional disturbances decrease to increase the quality of life.

Yoga Provides:

  • A healing alternative to talk therapy.
  • A way for clients to feel more comfortable in and accepting of their bodies.
  • Breathing techniques to change a person’s emotional state by increasing heart rate variability and heart-coherence—it sends a message of relaxation to every system of the body.
  • Experiences that teach that you are different from your thoughts.

Yoga teaches students to honor the body, make choices about how to move, or what to do based on sensory feedback, and that their feelings matter so they can make choices and help themselves feel better.

The Health Benefits of Yoga

Increases/Improves:

  • Attention span/concentration
  • Cognitive/academic performance
  • Interpersonal skills/relationships
  • Coping with medical problems
  • Body and sensory awareness
  • Self-control/discipline
  • Respect for others, self, body
  • Ethical behavior/awareness
  • Peacefulness/conflict resolution
  • Blood pressure
  • Digestion/assimilation/elimination
  • Energy/mood fluctuations

Decreases

  • Anxiety/depression
  • Stress/tension
  • Hyperactivity and impulsivity
  • Posttraumatic stress
  • Anger
  • Physiological arousal
  • Chronic pain
  • Headaches
  • Disruptive behavior
  • Phobic reactions
  • Nightmares/sleeping problems

Yoga is not a replacement for psychotherapy but can greatly benefit clients through:

  • Exercise
  • Relaxation
  • Deep Breathing
  • Support of spiritual practices and beliefs
  • Community

About the Teacher

Kristal Perry-Gutierrez is an LCPC--Licensed Clinical Professional Counselor. She specializes in trauma and PTSD treatment. She has worked with children, adults and families, providing therapy for 13 years. She is a Certified Yoga Teacher, and has taught Yoga for the past 10 years at Namaste. She has also had extensive experience teaching Yoga to behaviorally disturbed children.

 

"Wonderful training. Appreciated the technical anatomical/neurological information—I like a 'science' approach to the topic. I felt comfortable asking questions."
M.E.

"Great Experience... because of the practice, my mind felt very relaxed which allowed me to be open to the new information. I was glad I got to meet very interesting individuals with different professions in the same field."
I.K.

 

Trauma victims connect to their bodies with specialized yoga
By Shannon O'Brien of GateHouse News Service on Pressmentor.com July 28, 2011
Kristal Perry-Gutierrez teaches "Healing Through Yoga" at Namaste Yoga Center in Springfield, Ill. "I've been teaching yoga for 16 years, and this is a very different way of teaching," she says. In other forms of yoga, the instructor tells participants what to do as they move from step to step. In trauma-sensitive yoga, "we give them options gently, rather than telling them. We invite them; we encourage them. We just gently coach them into an awareness of a situation in the body," she explains.

Many people who have experienced trauma, "they haven't had a choice often. They haven't had a choice presented to them," Perry-Gutierrez says. In trauma-sensitive yoga, the language of the instructor reflects choices. "The choice and control always remain with them," she says.

The skills developed while practicing the ancient discipline of yoga can assist trauma victims in several ways. "Yoga helps people experience themselves in the present moment," Perry-Gutierrez says. "Trauma victims often are more oriented to past events and behave as though they are responding to past events." The practice also emphasizes mindfulness. Yoga helps trauma victims become reacquainted with their bodies.

Colleen Dracos of Springfield has been participating in Perry-Gutierrez's class for two months and says it's different each time she goes. "It helps me alleviate anxiety. It helps alleviate depression and fear. What happens is you develop trigger points for the abuse you have suffered, whether it's physical, emotional or verbal," Dracos says. "Yoga helps you figure out what those (triggers) are and develop the realization that you are no longer balanced or centered, and you need to get back to center. It's a process."

While Perry-Gutierrez's class is open to the public, her goal is to keep the class small. "We want it to be a safe place where people can create community connections," she says. For those interested in taking the class, she likes to speak with them beforehand to discuss trauma-sensitive yoga and to determine if the class is an appropriate fit.
Read the full story at PressMentor.com...