Irina Diyankova & Debra Premashakti Alvis – Neuroscience & Yoga in the Treatment of Trauma

What you’ll learn in Neuroscience & Yoga in the Treatment of Trauma

PART 1: Neuroscience & Yoga in the Treatment of Trauma

• Section I: Neuroscience, Trauma and Yoga
• Seated Yoga Grounding Practice to Relax and Focus
  • How your clients experience yoga in the body
  • How to quickly apply this practice to your work with trauma survivors
• What Is Trauma?
  • Psychological/emotional trauma
  • Single vs. repeated vs. extended trauma
  • Developmental trauma
  • Complex trauma
• What Neuroscience Tells Us about the Impact of Trauma
  • How and why the brain and nervous system get “stuck” when trying to process a traumatic event
  • Why a survivor’s post-trauma autonomic nervous system (ANS) creates narrow “windows of tolerance”—and how yoga can help widen them
  • Simple sitting and standing yoga poses and their clinical applications
  • Brain structures implicated in trauma and PTSD
  • How trauma changes the brain and nervous system—and how they can heal
• Section II: Intersections of Yoga and Trauma Treatment
• Yoga Poses You Can Use in Individual and Group Work with Trauma Survivors
  • Mountain Pose to come into the present and release negative emotions
  • Forward Fold soothes an anxious nervous system and encourages introspection
  • Breath of Joy boosts mood and reduces fatigue and depression
  • Moving Warrior Poses help to heal shame and increase a sense of control in the body
  • Dancing Tree Pose encourages balance in the body, which can be difficult for trauma survivors because of changes in their nervous system
  • And more!
• What Makes Yoga Suitable for the Treatment of Trauma
  • The triune brain and how yoga calms the amygdala and sympathetic nervous system
  • How yoga encourages both top-down and bottom-up regulation
  • What yoga is—and is not—and how it can be applied clinically
  • Debunking myths and misconceptions about yoga and who it’s for
  • Research findings on yoga in the treatment of trauma
  • Specific things to pay attention to when using yoga in treating a trauma survivor
  • Integrating trauma-sensitive yoga in clinical work

PART 2: Bringing Trauma-Informed Yoga into Mental Health Clinical Practices

• SECTION I: Using Somatic Experiencing in Your Practice
• How Mindfulness and Yoga Can Help Your Clients
  • What are “bells of mindfulness”
  • How to keep you—and your clients—in the present moment
• Yoga for Trauma
  • Where the research on yoga and trauma stands right now
  • Why yoga as a mind-body-spirit approach is so helpful in treating trauma
  • How to work with yoga teachers to help clients develop an effective practice in conjunction with clinical treatment
• Yogic Tradition and Neuropsychology
  • The (short) history and purpose of yoga
  • How trauma—and yoga—affects people at the cellular level
  • Yoga’s effect on heart rate variability (HRV)
  • How yoga improves vagal nerve tone to improve resiliency
• Embodied Psychotherapy and Somatic Experiencing
  • How somatic therapy through yoga can stabilize the ANS to reduce anxiety, depression and chronic stress
  • What is “shock structure” and how it relates to trauma
  • How yoga can increase positive experiences in trauma survivors
  • Discover strategies that discharge the nervous system and restore a resting baseline in trauma survivors
  • How trauma-sensitive yoga differs from other kinds of yoga
  • Breathwork to help calm rising panic
• SECTION II: Trauma-Informed Yoga in Action
• Yoga and Self-Regulation
  • What the research reveals about how yoga and breathwork helps trauma survivors
  • Use yogic breathwork to calm and regulate the ANS
  • Examples of yogic breathing exercises you can use with your clients
• Applying Trauma-Informed Yoga Postures in Your Practice
  • How to use and apply the principles and practices of trauma-informed yoga
  • Chair yoga sequences that help your clients discharge trauma in their body
  • How the deep relaxation of yoga nidra can help regulate the ANS
  • Evaluating your clients to ensure this type of treatment is appropriate
  • Suggestions for opening and closing sessions with trauma survivors

More courses from the same author: Irina Diyankova & Debra Premashakti Alvis