by Adrianne Lind, AWC Stockholm and host of the Yoga Saved Me podcast
I have been a client of the Veterans Yoga Project since September 8, 2021. As I write this, I have taken over 400 yoga and meditation classes through their online studio. It is, and remains a free, in-person, and online Mindful Resilience tools provider for the military community. These tools are vital to my grief recovery, trauma healing, stress management and self-care. And I’m not alone. A pilot study at the Trauma Center at the Justice Resource Institute in Brookline, Mass., found that eight 75-minute Hatha yoga classes reduced PTS(D) in women. This was in comparison to a group that participated in dialectical behavior therapy. What a prescription! Yet, imagine trying to manage complicated emotions, or process trauma alone. With input from my medical care team, I renewed and reinvigorated a yoga practice I began in 1996. On February 14, 2023, I joined the ranks of the Veterans Yoga Project Yoga Teachers.
Mindful Resilience for Trauma Recovery
I am a rape survivor. I am a loss survivor: death, divorce, and frequent home moves have all been challenges I faced. The loss of a beloved parent. A marriage dissolving. Moving away from friends and colleagues and starting over again. Stressful, all of it. Traumatic, even. But I invite you to consider this. Veterans Administration data show that almost 20% of US female Veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts have been diagnosed with PTS(D). Of 432 women who served in or around Vietnam between 1964 and 1975, 27% had PTS(D) at some point in their postwar lives. These figures are a result of a National Vietnam Veterans Readjustment Study. The good news is that it’s never too late to discover Veterans Yoga Project’s Mindful Resilience for Trauma Recovery online and in-person practices.
Veterans Yoga Project offers Yoga practices based on a program called Mindful Resilience for Trauma Recovery. It is tested and based on evidence. It is developed for military veterans recovering from post-traumatic stress and other mental issues. Mindful Resilience is in use in mental health and addiction programs for veterans and active-duty military in the United States and Canada.
It is evidence-informed and uses clinical and neuro-scientific knowledge of PTS(D) and its treatment. Clinical testing was based on feedback from hundreds of veterans and active-duty service members in residential and outpatient treatment programs.
Yoga Teachers can join the Veterans Yoga Project Teachers Alliance after completing the Mindful Resilience Trauma Recovery Training. The Yoga Alliance recognizes the teacher training and issues Continuing Education credits upon completion.
As part of the training, students explore:
- The development, course and effects of trauma-related disorders.
- The psychotherapeutic treatment of these disorders and yoga’s role in it.
- Cautions when providing yoga therapy to veterans and other trauma-affected individuals.
- Practices, principles and resources helpful for veterans coping with trauma. This includes a detailed manual with a 12-week, empirically-supported treatment protocol.
- Students also get a downloadable copy of the Mindful Resilience Yoga for Veterans Recovering from Trauma practice guide.
Veterans Yoga Project offers many in-person and online Yoga and Meditation classes including daily online Yoga Nidra classes.
Yoga Nidra
The best part of my first Yoga class in 1996 came at the end. We were asked to lie down, close our eyes, and breathe. I don’t remember what came next other than I was transported to a wonderful place. My body felt weightless and I could feel myself smiling. I was warm and happy too. I don't know how long I was there. I remember being called back into the room and not wanting to leave that wonderful place.
Twenty-seven years later, I signed up for a Veterans Yoga Project Yoga Nidra class. I threw myself into yoga classes as if my life depended on it because at the time it did. My grief was all-consuming. I wasn’t living any kind of life, not to mention a purposeful one. Instead, I was mired in grief and it presented itself as physical ailments and feeling melancholy.
I arrived at an online class one evening expecting movement at 9 pm. Instead, I was led through a meditative Yoga Nidra practice. Yoga Nidra involves slowing down and chilling out. So does meditation. Some people lump them together. But, they are different, according to the Cleveland Clinic. Yoga Therapist Judi Bar explains, “With Yoga Nidra, you are lying down, and the goal is to move into a deep state of conscious awareness sleep, which is a deeper state of relaxation with awareness. This state involves moving from consciousness while awake to dreaming and then to not-dreaming while remaining awake – going past the unconscious to the conscious.” I had found my happy place and learned that Yoga Nidra was my portal to return.
iRest
iRest is a Yoga Nidra form. It was developed by Richard C. Miller, Ph.D., a clinical psychologist, author, researcher, and yogic scholar. He is the founding president of the Integrative Restoration Institute (IRI), and co-founded The International Association of Yoga Therapists (IAYT). Dr. Miller is the founding editor of the Journal of IAYT and worked with Walter Reed Army Medical Center and the Department Of Defense. He has studied iRest’s efficacy. The iRest protocol was used with soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan who suffered from post-traumatic stress (PTS(D). In 2010, Eric Schoomaker, then-Surgeon General of the US Army, endorsed Yoga Nidra as a complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) for chronic pain.
Protecting and defending one’s mental health
Life is stressful and mental health is fragile. It warrants protection. The military lists these things for their community to remember:
- Protecting, optimizing, and defending your mental health is vital to the well-being of everyone.
- Mental health is health.
- Seeking help is a sign of strength.
- Don’t wait until you are in crisis to make your mental health a priority.
- Defending your mental health means making your mental health a priority.
- No matter what you are facing, you don’t have to go at it alone. It’s ok to ask for help.
Every Veterans Yoga Project class has five parts: breathwork, meditation, mindful movement, gratitude and rest. I taught my first yoga class on March 8, 2023. It was International Women's Day (IWD). I offered a Yoga Flow class to celebrate, then I taught Yin Yoga as a substitute for a mentor at the Veterans Yoga Project. It was an honor to be on the other side of the mat and share the five ingredients of a Mindful Resilience yoga class. These classes remain key to my mental and physical health. The trauma-informed space encourages participants to find their yoga. It aims to foster compassion, reduce stress, and mitigate PTS(D) effects.
Adrianne Lind is a past President of the AWC Stockholm. She is a long-distance caregiver, a daughter and a wife of veterans. A member of AWC Gothenburg and AIC Malmo, she is a US overseas voter advocate, multi-award-winning blogger, podcaster, and a yoga coach with Always Home Yoga.
Photo 1 courtesy of Adrianne Lind, other photos courtesy of Canva