The Power of Yoga for Healing of Trauma
“Any meaningful conversation about how yoga practice can effect transformation now has a reference point in brain research.” – Julian Walker
It is worth reading that quote more than once. It rocks my world that these practices which, for so long have been and felt so meaningful and healing for me now have scientific validation. No longer can we be dismissed as mystic dreamers or crazy charlatans at worst, misguided optimists at best; this stuff works, and science has the proof. We have come a long way, and the last 25 years have seen an exponential growth in our ability to assess the contemplative practices, into which yogis have been inquiring for centuries, if not millennia, in scientific, objective ways.
Science is discovering that the key to how yoga works is the neuroplasticity of the brain. Neuroplasticity is the brain's ability to reorganize itself by forming new neural connections throughout life. Neuroplasticity allows the neurons (nerve cells) in the brain to compensate for trauma, injury and disease and to adjust their activities in response to new situations or to changes in their environment. Yoga teacher Julian Walker offers his encapsulated distillations from latest neuroscientific literature, as his Three Principles of Transformational Neuroplasticity:
Consistency – In order to experience positive transformation, our contemplative practice must be consistent. In his words, ‘Staying on the path produces results over time’.
Linkage – To use the research catchphrase, ‘What Fires Together, Wires Together’, we can create powerful chains of safe association between the positive experience of rolling out our mats, feeling the shared (or not) sacred space, and becoming aware of what is going on with our bodies. Use what Walker calls his ‘sacred trinity’ of practice: deep breath, presence and being in community.
Your Just Desserts – Consistency and Linkage activate positive neuroplasticity, and when we then add a reward system, by stimulating the hormones of pleasure such as endorphins and dopamine, for example by throwing some music and poetry into the sacred trinity practice mix, we anchor the positive rest-and-digest lower vagal response along with upper vagal heart-centred response, for maximum benefit.
Now I really understand why it is that I love so much the practices that I have been engaging in and loving for so long. Science explains why they are so deeply healing.
‘Contemplative practices usually feel good because they are good for us.’ - Rick Hanson
Yoga practice as opportunity to rewire a traumatised brain-body
Let’s now look at the impact of trauma. Psychological trauma can be caused by a traumatic incident due to fear of not being able to escape, for example. These feelings can become trapped in the body and the brain; the traumatic incident may have created neural pathways that tell us that certain activities or situations are not safe. With carefully selected hatha yoga practices, we can help to shift these stuck feelings. These habits of immobility can also extend to feeling incapable of taking a full breath. In addition to having stuck emotions in the body, sometimes with breath challenges, trauma survivors also often have the symptom of dissociation – ‘checking out’ of the body to avoid being present with feelings that are too unbearable.
Yoga practices offer us a way through these typical trauma symptoms: shifting our focus from the thoughts and emotions, which may be skewed to the negative, to body sensations experienced in a posture grounds us in our present‐moment experience, and offers the opportunity for the brain and body to pause the narrative and instead engage in a regulating activity. This regulation might come from taking a yogic three‐ part deep breath, or in slowing down the movement involved in getting into or out of a yoga posture, to break a habitual movement pattern which might be holding a dysregulated system in place. Yoga poses also provide opportunities for enjoyable, creative explorations of the body, as we twist and turn our bodies into new shapes. Being present to this moment of enjoyment creates a foundation for recovery from trauma; in moving the trauma stuck in the body, we can also begin to create new linkages in the brain that rewire it to feel safe.
Weekly hatha yoga classes offered to PTSD sufferers yielded positive results (Van der Kolk et al 2014). Over ten weeks, the study offered hour-long trauma-informed yoga sessions, incorporating breathing, postures, and meditation. Simple, noninterpretive language without metaphors was used, and emphasised curiosity about bodily sensations, inviting self-inquiry with the use of key words such as ‘notice’ and ‘allow’, with invitational phrases such as ‘when you are ready’ and ‘if you like’. Personal agency is stressed, with practitioners given choices to modify a posture , to stay in a particular posture, or to it go. These approaches are key to the offering of yoga practices both to heal from trauma, and also to avoid being a source of trauma.
These scientific messages really motivate me, as a yoga teacher, because sometimes it can be overwhelming to navigate the messages of ‘Yoga and Buddhism are religions - you weren’t brought up in those religions, you are culturally appropriating’, ‘Western Yoga is not ‘real’ yoga’ etc. etc. We all have breath, bodies and brains. The ancient contemplative practices of meditation, breathwork, and moving our bodies, are tools to be used, both with cultural care and respect, and with care and respect to the bodies and agency of our student friends. If we are consistent with our practice, we can both rewire our brains from trauma, and create a sweet ‘dessert’ of positive body responses. Let’s be focussed and pure with our intentions, and share these practices!
“When your intentions are pure, so too will be your success.” ― Charles F. Glassman
Thank you for reading! You may also be interested in Decolonising Yoga and Honouring its Roots and Yoga and Inclusivity.
Please do contact me if you would like to work with me therapeutically.
My next Yoga Teacher Training programme starts in February 2024.
References
Abram, B. (2018) Teaching Trauma Sensitive Yoga: A Practical Guide, North Atlantic Books.
Hanson, Rick (2009) (With Rick Mendius, M.D.; Foreword by Daniel Siegel, M.D., Preface by Jack Kornfield, Ph.D.) Buddha’s Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love, and Wisdom, New Harbinger.
Hanson, Rick (2013) Hardwiring Happiness: The New Brain Science of Contentment, Calm, and Confidence. Harmony Books (Random House).
Loizzo, J., Neale, M., and Wolf, E.J. (eds.). (2017) Positive Neuroplasticity: The Neuroscience of Mindfulness. Advances in Contemplative Psychotherapy: Accelerating Healing and Transformation. Routledge.
Lutz, Joann (2021) Trauma Healing in the Yoga Zone: A Guide for Mental Health Professionals and Yoga Therapists and Teachers, Handspring.
Van der Kolk B., et al. (2014) Yoga as an adjunctive treatment for posttraumatic stress disorder: a randomized controlled trial. J Clin Psychiatry. 2014 Jun; 75(6):e559‐65. doi: 10.4088/JCP.13m08561.
Walker, Julian (2013) The Magic of Your Brain: 3 Principles of Transformational Neuroplasticity https://julianwalkeryoga.com/blog/the-magic-of-your-brain-3-principles-of-transformational-neuroplasticity/