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Yoga therapy can be a powerful healing tool for those who struggle with eating disorders. Throughout the continuum of care, yoga can be offered to patients. However, it is important for yoga practitioners to understand all facets of eating disorders before implementing yoga therapy with this population. This post will highlight how yoga therapists work in each level of care and discuss their experiences in integrating yoga therapy with patients. 

Early in my career, I owned and operated one of the first private nutrition practices in the country. As I began to treat more and more patients diagnosed with eating disorders, in collaboration with mental health therapists and physicians, I felt there was a missing link in our treatment approaches. When I sold my private practice, I embarked on a regular yoga practice and enrolled in the 200-hour yoga teacher training program with the nationally renowned Jonny Kest. As part of the training, we were assigned a special project, that spoke to us, to present to our training class. 

Supporting Patients with Eating Disorders Through Yoga Therapy

This article discusses the Business of Yoga Therapy and the path that led me to starting the first yoga therapy training in eating disorders for professionals. From a business standpoint, I share my guidance with other yoga therapists, including the importance of acknowledging those that have trained and inspired you for a similar business.

International Association of Yoga Therapists

How to Sell Your Private Practice

I have started and grown several businesses – two of which I have sold. One was a private nutrition practice, the other a comprehensive eating disorders treatment center. Consider how you can nurture, grow, shape and mold your business so you can sell it for a profit. This article discusses how to sell your private practice for registered dietitians.

Academy of Nutrition, Nutrition Entrepreneurs (NE) Dietetic Practice Group

Yoga therapy for eating disorders can help your patient go deeper than words alone. By observing your patient on their yoga mat as a trained yoga therapist, you can interpret what your patient is experiencing in that moment. Body centered therapies, such as mindfulness yoga, have gained momentum in the therapeutic community.

In yoga for eating disorders, we help our patients practice balancing effort with ease— sthira and sukha. Many yoga poses feel awkward and challenging - a metaphor for uncomfortable situations your clients experience in their lives. By using effort (sthira) but balancing this effort with ease (sukha), your client can gradually move into a yoga posture without tension, similar to the way they can approach their recovery. 

Yoga instructor. Yoga teacher. Yoga therapy. Yoga therapist. In the eating disorders treatment community, these terms are often used interchangeably. But are they one in the same? No. They are not.

Savasana is an important pose to complete each yoga therapy for eating disorders session with your patients. Active postures work to warm the body and break down old behaviors. Resting in savasana helps to cool the body to support the emergence of these new behaviors.

"Recovered" or "Recovering"? Recovery is not finite. Recovery, like yoga, is an infinite journey. From a yoga standpoint, we are always growing and learning. There is no endpoint to evolvement. Yoga, like recovery, is circular. 

The yogis tell us that the road to true happiness, peace and equanimity is to look inside ourselves with presence instead of looking outside and chasing answers. In yoga for eating disorders, patients are able to go inside in order to come out with an understanding of themselves.