College Admissions Essay: My Love Of Yoga

Bessel van der Kolk (2014) in his groundbreaking book, “The Body Keeps the Score,” explores how trauma memories are stored nonverbally in the physical body and brain. He recommends yoga as one pathway to release that somatic memory and re-establish equilibrium. Many of the benefits of art therapy are also associated with yoga. They are both experience-based, guided by intention, promote self-awareness, encourage a state of flow, activate the limbic brain, reduce stress, encourage observation rather than judgement, are adaptive, and encourage change and healing (Gibbons, 2015). Yoga stretches can be incorporated into art therapy sessions to address the large muscle movements associated with the ETC kinesthetic component and to reduce tension. Yoga can also induce a state of body-based present-moment awareness and sensory calm.

Of the many techniques people use to reduce stress, yoga is among one of the more popular. Although some may believe that effects of yoga are merely physical, there is research that suggests that yoga has direct impacts on one’s mental state. According to Forbes, in addition to the benefits on the heart and blood flow, yoga helps release dopamine and gaba and serotonin (Walton, 2012). All of these are known to create feeling of happiness in a person (K. W. Brown, personal communication, Sept. 7). For this lab, I decided I would try yoga for myself to test the results.

Yoga has been shown to be effective as an adjunctive treatment for a wide variety of disorders, including epilepsy, diabetes, heart disease, insomnia, and chronic pain (Streeter et al., 2012; van der Kolk, 2014). Streeter et al. (2012) propose that yoga is helpful in such a wide variety of conditions because it reduces allostatic load in the stress response symptom, decreases sympathetic nervous system activity, increases parasympathetic nervous system activity, and increases gamma amino-butyric acid (GABA) levels. Overall, yoga is a practice that may help the body return to a more optimal state of

Seane Corn’s podcast was twofold: educational and invigorating. Hearing her talk about her journey to happiness is a true testimonial to naysayers who are having doubts about the positive effects of yoga. Corn’s journey to happiness, as she conveyed, was not an easy one. She had to clamber her way from an unsettled place as a child growing up in an unstable home. She explained how her blue-collar working class parents raised her in an environment where religious practices were not present and how, as a little girl, she thought of herself as “uneducated.” She abused drugs and the tender age of 19 and was diagnosed with “Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.” She even suffered from an anxiety disorder, but these dark episodes of her life eventually led to healing and happiness once she discovered yoga.

Seane Corn’s podcast was two-fold: educational and invigorating. Hearing her talk about her journey to happiness is a true testimonial to naysayers who are having doubts about the positive effects of yoga. Corn’s journey to happiness, as she conveyed, was not an easy one. She had to clamber her way from an unsettled place as a child growing up in unstable home. She explained how her blue-collar working class parents raised her in an environment where religious practices were not present and how, as a little girl, she thought of herself as “uneducated.” She abused drugs and the tender age of 19 was diagnosed with “Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.” She even suffered from an anxiety disorder but these dark episodes of her life eventually led to healing and happiness once she discovered yoga.

The ancient practice of yoga is called meditation in motion ( ). It is a technique that uses physical postures and controlled breathing to lengthen and strengthen the spine and increase flexibility. It also builds strength, calms the mind, improves concentration, promotes patience, and relieves stress. Yoga can also contribute to a greater sense of control in more acute states when experiencing drug cravings, insomnia, and agitation ( ). Many addicts in recovery find that the serenity they learned in yoga acts as a natural tranquilizer that allows them to step back and evaluate their thoughts with greater clarity. A person who experiences a craving, for example, may apply the practice of mindfulness to that craving and acknowledges it without emotion. One can recognize it as an object of active addiction and let it go without using the drug. Regular yoga practice is needed to fully experience these kind of benefits. Overall, the huge addiction problem is complex, requiring multiple methods of intervention and

Muralidoraiswamy, P. “Yoga on Our Minds: A Systematic Review of Yoga for Neuropsychiatric Disorder.” Shirleytelle Frontiers in Psychiatry, Jan. 2013. This article focuses on the physiological aspect of a yoga class. It essentially explains what happens in a person’s brain after going through a hatha yoga class. This study also talks about yoga as a long-term mental health solution, since typically yoga is a life-style. Overall, the study provides a scientific look at more personal experiences.

So how can one make it through these physical obstacles and come out on the other side? We need a strong physical and mental base to guide us through the physical pain. This is what a yoga practice brings to our healing as we strengthen our body through the strengthening of our mind and vice versa. The authors highlight this with an insightful quote

For many people with hectic, stressful lives, relaxation means zoning out in front of the TV at the end of the day or getting some extra sleep at the end of the weekend, but for a certain group of people relaxing does not include this. These people are called yogis; those who achieve relaxation through the art of meditation, breathing, stretching, and finding inner peace. In today’s fast paced society it is hard to find a way to fully relax because people are constantly being forced to push their minds and bodies to the limit, which can result in high levels of stress. Rather than fighting against life’s hardships, people who practice yoga value deep relaxation in order to be free of stress and live each day in peace and harmony

When most Americans hear the word 'yoga', they think of a petite girl in a ponytail and leggings, carrying her purple yoga mat. This image has become so completely part of the culture of American yoga that the general response when suggesting yoga as a training method is either "That's for girls," or "But I'm not flexible." These responses were generated by an overall ignorance regarding yoga as a practice. Imagine, for a moment, a very large and muscular man with the soles of his feet together on the ground in butterfly pose. Now imagine that one man in a large room with twenty men much like him in the same yoga position. A scene like this is the new normal;

We all know that Yoga's benefits are supposed to be huge. But, how many of you have tried it and not experienced the benefits for yourself? It can be more stressful than stress relieving sometimes, and it can have other negative effects on the body that are totally unwanted, like pain, which is why we wanted to do a Her Yoga Secrets review. The author says that she can help you finally experience all the benefits you want from Yoga with a few secrets. But does she really know something that you haven't already heard? Is this really something that will make yoga a life-changing exercise? Let's take a closer look.

Meeting Jenni at Evolutions Yoga, she shares with me that she has over 20 years of experience in yoga, breathing, and meditation, and holds degrees in Eastern Philosophy and Religious Studies. Her expertise is supported with over 8,000 hours in Yogic Sciences and biomechanics of Asana, as well as being a certified personal trainer and nutritional counselor. She is the Director of Education of Evolutions, a 200 hour yoga trainer certification program. Jenni has centered her life in traditional yoga philosophy with a focus on physical posture, yoga therapy, and physical and mental renewal after an injury or illness. Jenni’s ownership of Evolutions Yoga has been recognized in serving the community by offering yoga programs that pose balance and

Crystal Boschert began her exploration with yoga 8 years ago. Within no time she fell in love with yoga, which led her wanting to learn more so, she could deepen her practice and to share her passion of yoga and its many benefits with other’s along with helping others to adventure into a more holistic way of living. In 2014, she registered with The National Yoga Alliance as a Registered Yoga Teacher (RYT 200) and began teaching after completing her first teacher training at Jane’s House of Well-Being in St. Charles, Missouri. She was trained to teach Hatha yoga, using the Dynamic Yoga Method (DYM), under Robin Buck, Sarah Kadel, Matthew and Holly Krepps, and other masterful teacher’s.

However, what if chronic back pain could be managed by adding alternative therapies such as yoga to modern treatments? Yoga is an additional therapy that decreases chronic back pain by promoting movement and decreasing pain medication dependence (Lee, Crawford & Schoomaker, 2014). This could radically reduce the dependence on drugs for pain relief and lead to a movement where pain is managed with the help of both modern medicine and affordable alternative remedies. With this in mind, promoting alternative therapies, such as yoga, in collaboration with modern treatments provides a larger range of options with different efficiencies for those with chronic back pain.

My yoga journey started more than ten years ago with an intense and dedicated interest in learning yoga postures from Ashtanga, Hatha, Jivamukti, etc. In the beginning I practised most days of the week and imagined that I would never tire, in spite of long trips to the studio in the early hours of the morning. A pleasant reward was that my blood pressure dropped back to normal and I could stop taking medicines. So, from the start, I knew that yoga could provide health benefits as well as an enormous feeling of wellbeing. No matter how tired and fed-up one felt at the beginning of a session, the mental lift afterwards was deeply satisfying. Meditation, Savasana, or corpse posture, wound up every session so it also became clear that postures or asanas were only part of the remedy. Meditation and yoga practise from the very beginning fired my interest in searching for an inner consciousness. This is an easily misunderstood word and means many different things to many different people. Some will associate it with awareness, or mindfulness