For our week 6 meeting, Dr. Jas Tilghman led us through a trauma-informed yoga workshop! Dr. Jas is the Assistant Director of Mental Health Training, Intervention, & Response for Residential Life and RISE at UCLA. She is also a Certified Yoga Instructor (RYT-200). She places an emphasis on the mind-body connection in her approach to holistic healthcare. At our workshop, Dr. Jas spoke to us about how we can use yoga to channel resilience for trauma recovery and led us through a yoga practice that left us all feeling a little calmer and stronger.
At the heart of trauma-informed yoga are what Dr. Jas refers to as the 3 C’s: control, choice, and center. A sense of control involves having command over your own body and is essential to alleviate anxiety before your practice. A lack of choice often characterizes traumatic events, so reclaiming choice during your practice is empowering. Centering can be thought of as mindfulness—connecting to your present surroundings, emotions, and opening yourself up to the process of healing.
During our practice, Dr. Jas led us through various asanas, or poses. We even did a couple of vinyasa flows! A vinyasa flow is a sequence of poses you move through relatively quickly. For those of you familiar with asanas by name, the poses of vinyasa are plank, chaturanga, upward-facing dog, and downward dog.
Dr. Jas left us with a recommendation to try her personal favorite type of yoga: hot yoga! Hot yoga is yoga performed under hot and humid conditions. The benefits of hot yoga compared to other types of yoga are the hot conditions allow you to become more limber, heal better, and detox. Just make sure you bring plenty of water. Still, Dr. Jas understands that the heat is not for everyone, and she maintains that any yoga is better than no yoga! So find the practice that is right for you, and your mind and body will thank you for it.
If you would like to connect more with Dr. Jas and/or the RISE center, visit the RISE website here. Additionally, Dr. Jas runs a private practice called True To You Psychotherapy & Consulting, which can be found here.
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