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Online Therapeutic Yoga Classes
For Your Mind, Body And Soul
In a world full of constant stimulation, demands and stress, making space to enjoy inner calm is well-being imperativ
By means of mindful movement, breathing and guided relaxation, our therapeutic yoga classes offer you a gentle but powerful way to slow down, relax and support your physical and mental wellbeing
Our small-group online classes are
- wellbeing oriented
- x6 max. participants for individual attention
- suitable for all levels from beginners up
- interactive, live on Zoom on UK time
- sessions are recorded for your personal-practice
Therapeutic yoga goes straight to the core of your stress to help you nurture a felt sense of calm wellbeing
With a top level of individual attention and support in small groups of 6 you'll develop a personal practice to help you
Manuel Ponce is a cranially oriented osteopath and yoga teacher 35 years in practice
Join us for a calming and deeply nurturing experience
Blog
Rest And De-Stress – The Vagus Nerve And Yoga
While most of us are familiar with the body’s stress response, rest-and-digest has only more recently received due attention. Organized centrally, rest and digest is mediated by the Vagus
Class Schedule
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Therapeutic Yoga
And The Vagus Nerve
The body's main anti-stress mechanism, the parasympathetic nervous system helps your body rest and digest to calm and reset all your vital functions and promote healing and repair
Parasympathetic activity exerts its actions on the body by means of the Vagus Nerve
Studies have shown that Yoga powerfully activates your vagus nerve. Therapeutic yoga practices help to calm stress and anxiety, soothe your aches and pains and reset all your body's vital functions
Vagal activity relaxes your heart and breathing, enhances digestion and immunity, and resets all your vital functions. But rest isn't doing nothing. Rest is a positive mental state of relaxed alertness associated with a felt sense of safety
Through movement, breath, guided imagery, and other therapeutic yoga practices you'll activate the vagus nerve to free your mind and body from tension and enjoy inner peace and health
How Will I Benefit?
Therapeutic yoga goes straight to the core of your stress to help you nurture a felt sense of calm wellbeing
With a top level of individual attention and support in small groups of 6 you'll develop a personal practice to help you
- ease stiffness and pain
- regulate your blood pressure
- soothe irritable bowel & other digestive issues
- calm stress and tension
- improve your sleep
- boost your memory and brain power
- increase your energy, and much more ...
Therapeutic yoga is a great tool for managing chronic pain. Long term chronic type pain is strongly related to psycho-emotional states and not just straightforward tissue injury
By calming your nervous system therapeutic yogic techniques can help rewire brain pathways to reset pain sensitivity
Check our hatha yoga benefits page for a fuller account of how yoga can help you feel on top of the world
And don't forget to contact Manuel for your free assessment and general advice
Initial Assessment
Yoga is a powerful tool for working with many common stress-related conditions. To effectively select and target the activities we'll need to
- appreciate your current health status
- rule out issues which may need medical attention
- set your goals and objectives
- develop a therapeutic programme that's effective, safe and enjoyable
Please complete our online new client health form, which you'll find on the cranial osteopathy in london page
Then arrange your free 30 minute online assessment with Manuel
What Is Therapeutic Yoga?
How Will I Practice?
We practice the classical hatha yoga triad of postures, breath and awareness, or mindfulness, in ways that feel natural and enjoyable. The classes take a functional approach, connecting with how the activities feel to you, rather than referring to their outward appearance
Connecting with this inner alignment you learn to work within your own safe limits. And at the same time reach intelligently beyond your perceived limitations, to go ever deeper into your practice
Booking Instructions
1 - sign up with zoom and download the Zoom Client. Zoom is free to use
2 - contact me to arrange your free initial assessment
Book Your Class
Science Of Therapeutic Yoga
The healing benefits of yoga are well-documented and supported by a growing body of scientific literature. Studies show that yoga benefits the most common physical and mental ills of our age
Practicing yoga helps reduce inflammation, lower blood pressure, and improve cardiovascular health. Yoga has a similarly positive impact on your mental health, reducing stress, anxiety and depression, and promoting a positive experience of calm wellbeing
These physiological effects are largely related to yoga's ability to shift the balance from fit-flight to rest-and-digest digest. This inbuilt anti-stress response is mediated by the parasympathetic nervous system
The relative shift from arousal to rest is profoundly healing. In addition to improving cardiovascular health, parasympathetic activity stimulates digestion, enhances immune function, and supports tissue healing and repair
Rest-and-digest is equally beneficial for your mental wellbeing. Studies have shown that practicing yoga promotes emotional regulation and mental clarity, with measurable improvements in mood, anxiety levels, and cognitive function, as well as sleep
Browse the sections below to see how therapeutic yoga can help your mind and body achieve greater health and happiness
How does stress impact your health?
Stress starts with how you perceive something. Viewing something as stressful stimulates a physical flight-flight cascade to up-regulate your blood pressure, inflammation, pain sensitivity and many other vital functions
A healthy response is for your body to return to a baseline of rest and repair
Persistent arousal maintains inflammation with consequences ranging from blood vessel damage to tissue injury, anxiety and fatigue
Therapeutic yoga practices help you better cope with stressful events, activating the vagus nerve to reduce arousal, calm anxiety to let your body rest, reset and repair
Click the link for more in-depth information on the vagus nerve, stress and inflammation
Rest-and-digest, the Vagus Nerve and health
The principle messenger for signals from the rest-and-digest parasympathetic nervous system, vagal activity slows the heart, stimulates digestion and generally helps your body replenish and repair
As the main pathway of the gut brain axis the vagus regulates not just digestion, but also your mood, immune responses, and other functions vital for life
As danger activates the fight-flight stress response, the Vagus is activated by a felt sense of safety
Yoga has been found to activate the vagus nerve, helping you access its calming and healing powers and restoring balance to your whole mind and body.
How Does Yoga Stimulate The Vagus Nerve?
There is plentiful and sound evidence that yoga and mindful-movement therapies activate the vagus
Though exercises that stimulate parts of the abdomen and neck may directly influence the vagus, the jury is out on how significant – and lasting – these effects are
On the other hand, physical – and mental – stillness can activate the vagus
Research shows that holding a comfortable pose for four to five minutes produces effects linked to increased vagal activity
Yoga brings you into intimate contact with your physical self, allowing your body to be nourished without any expectation of achievement
It is through the holistic practice of posture, movement, regulated breath and mindful attention that you can unlock the door to health and happiness
Mindful Yoga Breathing For The Vagus Nerve
Breath is one of the most direct ways to calm the mind and stimulate the Vagus
Yoga has traditionally used the breath to calm the mind and achieve stillness. Pranayama, or “control of vital air” is a key component of yoga practice: a number of different breathing techniques are used for developing physical and mental stillness
Slow mindful breathing, especially techniques which use the diaphragm, have been shown to reset your nervous system and activate the vagus nerve
Practicing mindful diaphragmatic breathing will help you activate the parasympathetic, rest and digest response, with a decrease in heart rate, blood pressure and heart-rate-variability, all factors used to measure vagal activity
Mindfulness meditation for Vagal activation
The nature of the mind is to think. The mind will not be emptied. But it can be filled. This is mindfulness, which means filling the mind with one thought – or basically paying attention
Yoga practice invites you to pay attention in in the same way you do when driving, reading, or enjoying a beautiful view. There is minimal effort and much enjoyment
All effort in yoga, mental and physical, is gentle. This is key to avoiding tension
Paying attention shows you how you think and how you use your body, providing a platform for new thought and movement habits that’ll keep healthy, pain free and resilient
Therapeutic Yoga for pain management
The classes are an excellent way to manage a number of common pain syndromes
Yoga has been found to help with chronic type pain. This type of main is poorly related to physical injury and has a strong psychological component. It may start following an injury, inflammatory episode, or for no apparent reason. Importantly, the pain is real, but it exists largely in the nervous system, where pain pathways remain sensitized and active after the initial cause has resolved
With its holistic mind-body perspective, yoga and mindfulness help relax the nervous system, calm anxiety, and reset pain sensitivity
Yoga has also been found to help with back and neck pain
The commonest back pain type, non-specific or mechanical low back pain, is particularly multi-factorial, being related to poor posture, inefficient body use and psychological stress. It is often recurrent
With its focus on mind-body connectivity, yoga is particularly well suited to approach this complex pain syndrome from all relevant angles
Yoga has also been shown to help with tension related neck pain, shoulder pain, tension-type headache associated and migraine
Contact Manuel for more information and advice on how yoga can help you
You can also check Manuel's other live online-yoga classes, including osteopathic yoga and one-on-one private yoga classes
LONDON CLAPHAM
The Light Centre
151-153 Clapham Hight Street
London SW4 7SS
Mob +44 7532671343
WhatsApp +44 7735448588
LONDON WALTHAMSTOW
East Of Eden
Studio 1, 14 Hatherley Mews
London E17 4QP
Mob +44 7532671343
WhatsApp +44 7735448588
SPANISH YOGA RETREAT
C/ De Mingo Ramos 22
10200 Trujillo (Ca)
Spain
https://spanishyogaretreat.com
Contact Manuel