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Yoga Therapy

Many doctors have found that movements, breathing exercises, focus, concentration, and meditation are improving the health and healing process of their patients.

Yoga therapy is a well-tested treatment using yoga as medicine.

What Is Yoga Therapy?

Yoga therapy uses the ancient science of yoga to enhance your health and wellness at all levels:

  • Physical
  • Emotional
  • Spiritual

It focuses on yoga as a healing journey that brings balance to all aspects of your life and wakens your basic nature.

Yoga therapy is useful both for people who seek relief for certain health problems and for those who want to:

  • Enjoy good health.
  • Prevent disease.
  • Slow the aging process.

For true health to occur, yoga therapy must address all aspects of a person as a whole.

How Does Yoga Therapy Differ from Yoga Class?

Compared to a yoga teacher, the yoga therapist’s job:

  • Is less about teaching techniques and more about helping people manage their health problem and gain freedom from their illness.
  • Is to empower a person to take a more active role in their self-care.
  • Has a different focus, type of education, and skill set.

Examples include helping people manage:

  • Pain
  • Fatigue
  • Sleeplessness

In yoga therapy, the tools and techniques of yoga serve to reconnect you to yourself at all levels — from the:

  • Physical body to the breath.
  • Active body.
  • Mind, feelings, and spirit.
  • Higher wisdom sense.

Main ways yoga therapy differs from yoga class are:

Yoga therapy works with your goals.

We tailor each session to your needs, whether you want to:

  • Gain relief from chronic pain.
  • Speed up injury recovery.
  • Improve flexibility.
  • Reduce stress and improve well-being.
  • Get help with depression.
  • Retain your youthful glow and energy.

Yoga therapy targets a specific disease.

Most health issues benefit from some yoga asanas or yoga breathing techniques.

Some yoga therapists train mainly in one disease or condition, while others have a broader focus.

Yoga therapy adjusts the poses to your body's needs.

A yoga therapist shows you how to adjust poses to your body’s distinct needs, using props, modifications, and alignment aids.

They make sure that you get the full rewards from each pose.

Yoga therapy deepens body awareness.

We offer yoga therapy in one-on-one sessions, letting the therapist guide you in the fine subtleties of:

  • Muscle relaxation
  • Stretching
  • Strengthening

This method increases body awareness and helps you make quicker progress in reshaping your body.

Contact Us

UPMC Center for Integrative Medicine
Shadyside Place
580 S. Aiken Ave, Suite 310
Pittsburgh, PA 15232

For general information or to schedule an appointment, call 412‑623‑3023.