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A woman practicing yoga on a mat and using it as a complementary therapy for PTSD and trauma recovery.

Living with PTSD or recovering from trauma can feel like a constant battle with your mind and body. The anxiety, flashbacks, and emotional numbness can make everyday life seem overwhelming. While therapy and medication help to an extent, some people find that yoga classes provide an additional layer of healing. Yoga combines gentle movement, controlled breathing, and mindfulness, helping to restore balance and ease the tension that trauma leaves behind. As a complementary therapy for PTSD and trauma recovery, it calms your mind, allows you to reconnect with yourself, and helps you feel at home in your body again.

What is PTSD and Trauma?

PTSD, or Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, is a mental health condition triggered by experiencing or witnessing a traumatic event.

PTSD can cause severe symptoms, such as:

● Flashbacks
● Nightmares
● Emotional numbness
● Heightened anxiety that disrupts daily life

Trauma, on the other hand, refers to the emotional response to distressing experiences such as accidents, violence, or loss.

Even long after the event, trauma can affect both your mental and physical well-being, leading to feelings of helplessness or constant alertness. People living with untreated trauma are also at a higher risk of substance dependence, as they may turn to alcohol or drugs to cope with overwhelming emotions. Substance abuse can additionally exacerbate feelings of isolation, making it harder for individuals to seek help. Understanding this connection is crucial in addressing both trauma and addiction effectively.

Both PTSD and trauma deeply impact how you relate to yourself and the world around you. Simple tasks may feel overwhelming, and maintaining relationships or routines can become challenging.

Conventional treatments such as therapy, medication, or counseling provide essential support, but many people find that incorporating complementary therapies like yoga can make the healing process more holistic and effective.

The Role of Yoga in Trauma Recovery

When you’ve experienced something deeply traumatic, your mind and body can feel like they’re working against you. Yoga helps you slowly reconnect those pieces and enables you to regain control gently, non-invasively.

One of the most powerful aspects of yoga in trauma recovery is how it calms your overactive nervous system.

If you’re living with PTSD, your body may feel like it’s constantly stuck in “fight or flight” mode, making it hard to relax or even feel safe. Yoga encourages your body to shift out of that state by slowing down your breath, easing muscle tension, and allowing you to feel grounded again.

Yoga doesn’t push you to revisit painful memories. Instead, it focuses on helping you feel safe in the present moment. As a complementary therapy for PTSD and trauma recovery, it gives you the freedom to heal at your own pace, slowly releasing the grip that trauma has on your body and mind.

Benefits of Yoga for PTSD Symptoms

Reducing Physical Symptoms

Yoga helps by bringing your nervous system back into balance. Regular practice can lower the stress hormone cortisol, which reduces anxiety and promotes calmness. This calming effect can ease the physical tension that trauma has left behind.

Improving Emotional Regulation

Yoga teaches mindfulness, which helps you stay grounded in the present. For someone with PTSD, this can be incredibly helpful in managing intrusive thoughts, flashbacks, and emotional outbursts. By focusing on the present moment, this ancient practice empowers you to regain control over your emotions, making it easier to face triggers and handle stressful situations.

Enhancing Breath Control

Breath control is another essential aspect of yoga, and it plays a big role in calming PTSD symptoms. When you learn to regulate your breathing, you can interrupt your body’s stress response. That helps prevent anxiety from escalating and allows you to feel more in command of your reactions. Deep, controlled breathing techniques learned through yoga can improve sleep quality, reduce nightmares, and stabilize mood.

Reconnecting with Your Body

Trauma can make you feel disconnected from your own body. Luckily, yoga helps you reconnect with your physical sense through mindful movement and body awareness, thus allowing you to regain lost confidence.

Specific Yoga Practices for PTSD and Trauma Recovery

Not all yoga practices are the same. Certain styles and approaches are more effective at promoting healing than others when used as complementary therapy for PTSD and trauma recovery.

1. Trauma-Informed Yoga

Trauma-informed yoga is specifically designed for people dealing with PTSD or trauma. It focuses on creating a safe environment, allowing you to choose what feels comfortable for your body without pressure or judgment.

Instructors in trauma-informed yoga are trained to avoid triggering language and to offer modifications that make poses more accessible.

The goal is to empower you to listen to your body and feel safe as you move through the practice.

2. Gentle and Restorative Yoga

For trauma survivors, intense or fast-paced yoga might feel like too much. But not gentle and restorative yoga.

Gentle yoga, which includes slow movements and stretches, helps you reconnect with your body without feeling pressured to perform.

On the other hand, restorative yoga involves holding poses for longer periods using props like blankets or cushions to support the body. As such, it allows your body to relax fully and helps ease the tension.

3. Hatha Yoga

Hatha yoga is another great option for trauma recovery. It combines physical poses with breath control and mindfulness, giving you the tools to simultaneously work on your mind and body.

The pace is slower, focusing on balancing effort and relaxation.

What’s more, Hatha yoga is adaptable, making it suitable for beginners and those facing physical or emotional challenges.

Yoga as a Complementary Therapy for PTSD and Trauma
Recovery, Not a Replacement

While yoga can help you feel more grounded and in control, it’s not meant to replace professional treatments. Instead, think of it as a complementary therapy for PTSD and trauma recovery—something that helps you manage the day-to-day struggles. At the same time, the deeper work happens through counseling or other therapies. So yes, yoga doesn’t offer an easy and quick fix, but it does offer the strength to reclaim your body, mind, and spirit on your terms.

By embracing it as part of your healing process, you take an active role in your recovery—one
breath, one movement, and one moment at a time.

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Jennifer Miranda

Jenn took her very first yoga class in 2012 while searching for a fitness
routine that would improve her strength and flexibility. After that first class,
she got hooked. Yoga changed her life not only because of the physical
benefits of doing yoga but she also discovered that yoga has greatly improved
her mental focus and self-awareness. Because of this, she decided to share
her practice with others. Jenn completed her 200-hour yoga teacher training
in April 2017 and is a registered yoga instructor (RYT-200) with the Yoga
Alliance.

Jenn’s ultimate goal as a yoga teacher is to lead students towards a deeper
level of physical fitness and healthy lifestyle along with mental peace. She
loves to help beginners feel comfortable in their practice and learn essential
postures while motivating and challenging the more experienced yogis and
ensuring a safe practice for everyone. Maintaining her own personal practice
while learning and gaining inspiration from other yogis enables her to design
innovative, energetic, and fun sequences that are fit for all levels.

Jenn is also a professional portrait photographer and her love of both yoga
and photography paved the way for Yoga Photography. The skills she has
acquired over the years allow her to best capture yogis demonstrating beauty,
strength, and grace through movement.

Carrie Del Purgatorio

Carrie has had a consistent, daily, at-home yoga and meditation practice for many years and was finally inspired to take her love of yoga to the next level and embark on teacher training in 2022. She enjoys teaching a more powerful yoga flow with a strong focus on breathing. Carrie firmly believes that a little self-love goes a long way, and she feels extremely grateful to be able to share her practice with people.

Camille Alonso

Camille is a Holistic Health Coach, 235RYT (235 hour Registered Yoga Teacher),
Mindfulness Meditation Teacher, and former Pastry Chef. She received her 200RYT at Indigo Yoga in 2018 and studied meditation at Kripalu in 2019. She then earned her Integrate Nutrition Health Coach Certification at The Institute for Integrative Nutrition.

She is also a graduate of The Culinary Institute of America with a Bachelors in Baking Pastry Arts and Business Administration. Camille began her yoga and meditation practice in 2009 when she was dealing with chronic panic attacks. She found that through mindfulness practices she could feel like herself again. She is now inspired to guide clients through a relaxing and peaceful practice and leave them with tools to help manage stress and anxiety.

Theresa Conlon

Theresa is a Yoga Alliance certified instructor (200-hour RYT) who has been teaching since 2013. She is skilled in various yoga styles including Hatha, Ashtanga, Vinyasa Flow, Restorative, and Meditation. Theresa also brings an extensive dance background to her yoga practice, which includes teaching both modern dance and ballet. She has over 40 years of dance/theater performing experience and currently showcases her choreography as part of Bergen Dance Makers, a dance collective in northern New Jersey. Theresa’s yoga classes offer a calming mix of traditional asana postures and creative movement flows, supported by energy-moving breath. Students of all skill levels are invited to find ease and peace in their bodies/minds/spirits through the joyful bliss of yoga movement.

Carrie Parker Gastelu

Carrie Parker Gastelu, E-500 RYT, has been teaching yoga since 1993. Carrie began her journey when Yogi Raj Mani Finger initiated Carrie into the ISHTA Yoga lineage after training with Mani’s son, Yogi Raj Alan Finger. In addition, she has studied many other yoga traditions as well as anatomy, physiology, movement, and awareness practices to create an eclectic style all her own. She is known for her honest, non-dogmatic yet passionate approach.

Carrie is a regular speaker and contributor at conferences, websites, and print publications and has been featured in Fit Magazine, the Yoga Zone Book, and in the Yoga Zone Video, “Flexibility and Stress Release.”

Lisa Podesta-Coombs

When Lisa found yoga in 2008, she started to find herself again and it set her on a path of health and healing. She received her 200HR RYT certification from Raji Thron of Yoga Synthesis, and her 30HR Chakra Yoga Teacher Training certificate with Anodea Judith and holds a Y12SR (Yoga of 12 Step Recovery) certification. She is also a Holistic Health Coach (certified through the Institute for Integrative Nutrition). Lisa believes we’re all on a journey of learning how to trust ourselves; she helps her clients build that trust by supporting them in creating better habits for a better life through various functional movement modalities like yoga, barre, Pilates & strength training, mindset, and whole food nutrition.

Forever a student with a passion for people, holistic health, and self-actualization, Lisa is always embracing opportunities to advance her education to better serve; Ayurveda workshops & immersions have been of particular interest as she continues to deepen her knowledge of and experience with food as medicine and she recently completed Unleash Her Power Within, a transformational program of rediscovering our truest selves, powered by Tony Robbins.  

As she continues to give herself space and grace to nourish her natural self and actualize her potential, Lisa continues to share the gift of movement as medicine to inspire authenticity & health in body, mind, and spirit. You can expect mindful, accessible, dynamic, playful, and uplifting classes from Lisa.

Roberto Reynoso

Roberto Reynoso completed basic training in 2017 at Jaipure Yoga in Montclair. The training was Hatha Vinyasa based. Roberto has created his own style from the various styles of yoga he has loved practicing. He is well-versed in Iyengar, Vinyasa, and Restorative Yoga. He hopes to teach poses and themes in each class that inform, challenge, and guide students toward a better understanding of how to make the shapes and the anatomy behind the poses. He hopes to help students find more space when they leave and also hopes to help people grow in awareness through breath, alignment, and movement.