All About PhysioYoga
By Shelly Prosko PT, C-IAYT, CPI
What is PhysioYoga?
An approach to rehabilitation that combines evidence informed physiotherapy and yoga therapy, resulting in a holistic or biopsychosocial approach to your rehabilitation experience.
Physiotherapy is a well-respected healthcare profession that uses evidence informed treatment methods to help clients restore and maintain optimal movement and function, provide pain rehabilitation and pain care, as well as provide education on health creation, maintenance and injury prevention. As licensed health care professionals, physiotherapists have extensive training and knowledge about how the body functions and the pathophysiology of a variety of dysfunctions. Specialized skills are used to assess, diagnose and treat individuals suffering from a variety of injuries, disease symptoms and disabilities.
Yoga is an ancient life system of health that promotes ‘union’ and recognizes and addresses the oneness of the body, mind, breath and spirit, therefore enhancing and promoting an overall balanced lifestyle of health and well-being.
Licensed healthcare professionals who are trained to apply yoga methods and philosophy to an individual with specific health concerns or dysfunction, can offer a safe and effective approach to healing, using a biopsychosocialspiritual framework that promotes patient self-efficacy, empowerment and self healing.
When practiced regularly, the benefits are numerous!
Physical: Muscular strength, endurance, flexibility, body awareness, circulation, digestion, hormonal balance, respiration, immune function, bone strength, normalizing blood pressure, normalization of body weight, reduction of pain, improved self-management of pain and improved ability to self-regulate.
Mental: Improvements in alertness, concentration and sleep patterns may be experienced, reduction in the stress response and in anxiety and improvements in your ability to relax.
The key benefit is an overall state of health and well-being.
It is important to note that PhysioYoga is NOT treating a condition, rather, it is addressing the PERSON that is experiencing symptoms with a certain condition. We are facilitating the journey to health and well-being of PEOPLE, rather than ‘treating a diagnosis.’ It is “PhysioYoga for the person, not the diagnosis.”
That said, people who experience back and neck pain, musculoskeletal injuries (shoulders, hips, knees, etc), chronic or persistent pain, pelvic pain, osteoarthritis, osteoporosis, diabetes, fibromyalgia, high blood pressure, Irritable Bowel Syndrome, migraines/headaches, anxiety, rheumatoid arthritis, urinary stress or urge incontinence, may benefit from PhysioYoga.
It is worthy to note the role PhysioYoga can also play in creating overall health and wellness.
“…you really treat the whole body instead of just attacking the “problem area” – resulting in approaching the process in a much more positive way – of turning my body into an instrument I can use as opposed to something broken to be fixed” A.P.
“….you taught me that it’s never one spot you need to work on, but everything as a whole; that breathing is essential, and less can be more; and that the state of mind is just as important as anything physical I do. My attitude towards self care has changed and I also learned that every effort I make, even if small, is worthy.” S.H.
About Shelly Prosko PT, C-IAYT, CPI
Canadian physiotherapist, yoga therapist, author, speaker and educator dedicated to empowering individuals to create and sustain meaningful lives by teaching and advocating for the integration of yoga into modern healthcare. She is a respected pioneer of PhysioYoga, a combination of physiotherapy and yoga. You can access many of her online courses and videos here.
Shelly guest lectures at medical colleges, teaches at yoga therapy schools and yoga teacher trainings, speaks internationally at yoga therapy and medical conferences, contributes to yoga academic research and offers online continuing education courses for yoga and healthcare professionals on topics surrounding chronic pain, pelvic health and compassion. She is a Pain Care Yoga Trainer and co-author of Yoga and Science in Pain Care: Treating the Person in Pain.
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*Excerpt originally published at physioyoga.ca.