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Life Force
Yoga to Manage Your Mood At the For more information, call 609-924-7294 or visit www.princetonyoga.com To register,
go to: http://clients.mindbodyonline.com/ws.asp?studio=PrincetonCenterYogaHealth&stype=2&sTrn=252 BY
GREG VELLNER Special
to the Times
So severe was her
depression, Amy Weintraub couldn't do the
simplest things. She was unable to
put two shoes in a shoe box. She couldn't close a folding chair. Finding
the right words was sometimes impossible. And then there was the check
book. "Once, instead
of sending the amount on the invoice I was paying for my health insurance,
I sent the entire balance of my checking account," she says.
Like scores of others
-- 121 million people worldwide, according to the World Health Organization
-- Weintraub was clinically depressed. And like many of those
sufferers, she was put on an antidepressant medication -- probably
for life, her psychiatrist told her. But Weintraub
emerged from that dark place not so much with the help of prescription
drugs, psychotherapy or even comfort food. She found relief in a treatment
as old as the hills. "Practicing
yoga daily changed my mood and saved my life," says Weintraub,
56. "With yoga, there's an immediate sense of fullness and connection.
It's felt. It's visceral." The former television
producer/documentary filmmaker now passionately teaches the techniques
that she says helped her recover, and does it through her book ("Yoga
for Depression"), CD ("Breathe to Beat the Blues")
and DVD ("LifeForce Yoga to Beat the Blues -- Level 1"). She also does it
through workshops held nationwide, like the one this month in the
"LifeForce
Yoga to Manage Your Mood" will take place Weintraub, a yoga instructor who chose In her case, Weintraub was depressed, she said, due to undiagnosed post-partum
issues and because she masked her feelings by being a workaholic.
She was depressed for a number of years. Participants in the
The public, yoga
instructors, psychotherapists and other health professionals are invited.
"Psychotherapists
and instructors will learn techniques to help their clients focus,
relax and have greater access to their feelings," says Weintraub. Cost is $110 for
the day; $65 for morning session only ( Return to ancient
way Practitioners
of yoga -- an ancient discipline of breathing exercises and postures
-- believe in the mind-body connection and that emotions, particularly
traumatic ones, affect the body. The physiological benefits of practicing
yoga can be documented, says Weintraub.
"The research
corroborates my improvement," says Weintraub,
who said she feels great satisfaction in having gone from a client
of the mental-health system to a provider. Yoga elevates certain
"feel-good hormones," reduces a stress hormone and stimulates
a specific nerve connected to depression. "What you're
doing with the techniques is doing something even more beneficial:
creating a kind of meditative state," says Weintraub.
The practice enables people to "dis-identify
with the negative mind state." The result: "The
depression and sad mood can be there -- you see it and are aware of
it -- but you are not that." Her book, ""Yoga
for Depression," has met with rave reviews. "No matter what
your mood, Amy's unique 'LifeForce Yoga'
program will bring you balance and joy," says Lilias
Folan, PBS host and author of "Lilias!
Yoga Gets Better with Age." "I loved this practice."
Dr. Christiane
Northrup, author of 'Women's Bodies, Women's
Wisdom and the Wisdom of menopause," said: "Yoga for Depression
is a godsend. It's beautifully written, medically accurate and very
practical. I highly recommend it." And, says Phil Catalfo of Yoga Journal: "Weintraub
has written a sensitive, intelligent, painstaking exploration of the
deeper psychospiritual issues that make up complex experience of
depression." Yoga has been touted
as helpful in fighting high blood pressure, high cholesterol, back
pain and migraine headaches, and has been shown to promote relaxation
and reduce stress. Dr. Bessel van der Kolk, professor of psychiatry
at Boston University and a leader in research into post-traumatic
stress syndrome, is a believer in the benefits of yoga. "If you really
want to help a traumatized person, you have to work with core physiological
states and, then, the mind will start changing," he says. The medical doctor
said he advocates yoga, yogic breathing and meditation as a means
to address chronic stress lodged in the body. "As long as
people sit on their 'tuchas' and simply
move their tongues around, they may not be able to make enough of
a difference," he says. In the stretch Some
16.5 million Americans spend about $3 billion annually on yoga classes
and products, according to a Harris Interactive poll and Yoga Journal
magazine. Weintraub's is a lemons-to-lemonade story and
the Tuscon, Ariz.,
woman says she is sharing the refreshment through her work. The DVD,
she said, is the first home yoga practice to address mood management.
"More and more
studies are validating what the yogis understood thousands of years
ago: Good things are happening on a physiological level," she
says, with a caveat that practicing yoga doesn't guarantee that, as
was her case, all prescriptions can be halted. "Some people
will always need some form of medication just to get them to the yoga
mat," she says. "Some won't be able to withdraw completely.
It's an individual thing. The yoga needs to be practiced regularly
and you need to work with the person who prescribed it to gradually
come off medication. It's never good to go cold turkey." If Weintraub's
experience is any indication, practicing yoga might be just what the
doctor ordered -- or, as in her case, no longer orders. "After about
nine months of practicing, I went to another psychiatrist who after
seeing me several times thought I no longer was a candidate for antidepressants,"
she says. "That was in 1989 and I haven't been on medication
since. I haven't been depressed since then" "LifeForce Yoga to Manage Your Mood" will take place
11 a.m. to 6 p.m. July 14 at the Princeton Center for Yoga & Health,
Montgomery Professional Center, 50 Vreeland
Drive, Suite 506, Skillman. Cost is $110; $65 for morning session
only (11 a.m. to 2 p.m.). For information or to register, call (609)
924-7294 or look online (www.princetonyoga.com).
© 2007 The Times of © 2007 NJ.com All Rights Reserved. |
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