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Yoga Therapy Practices and Techniques

Yoga therapy uses a broad range of techniques and processes, including techniques to purify the body-mind, to increase prana and vitality, and meditation techniques to engage the power of the mind and consciousness in healing.

Each branch of yoga has its own utility in supporting therapeutic intervention. The most commonly used techniques come out of hatha yoga, mantra yoga and meditation.

Yoga Therapy techniques include:

• postures - asana
• breath work - pranayama
• hatha yoga cleansing techniques – shatkarmas
• relaxation techniques
• meditation techniques
• karma yoga
• bhakti yoga
• jnana yoga
• mantra yoga
• kriya yoga
• tantric practices

Hatha yoga, the starting point for most yoga therapy, works on the physical organs of the body and on our prana, the energetic systems of the body. Asana and pranayama recondition the physical body-mind, remove tensions, and support rebalance and realignment. Asanas also act on subtle channels that connect psychic centres and allow subtle energy, prana, to flow more smoothly and appropriately. It is the ability to manipulate prana that makes asana and pranayama so effective as tools for healing.

The hatha yoga shatkarma are 6 groups of lesser known techniques that powerfully affect the body-mind. They include techniques that utilize water, air and heat to cleanse the body, nervous system and subtle energy.

Meditation practices are powerful methods for healing and include: relaxation techniques, meditations that employ breath and mantra, awareness development (antar mouna), and more powerful tantric methods to cleanse the deeper, causal and elemental levels of our being (tattwa shuddhi, chakra meditations). Tantric systems employ mantras along with the visualization of yantras, symbols and images, and mudras and bandhas.

Author: Dr Swami Shankardev Saraswati

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