Yoga Therapy: Practices for Common Ailments

Mark Stephens, best-selling author of Teaching Yoga, Yoga Sequencing, and Yoga Adjustments, gives yoga teachers and students a practical resource for learning how to adapt yoga practices to best accommodate and heal a wide array of common injuries and ailments. Surveying historical writings on yoga, ayurveda, and other early approaches to health and healing, Stephens distills this received wisdom of ancient and modern practices for more insightful and practical application in today's world. He applies these insights to healing musculoskeletal injuries; promoting a healthy reproductive system; and addressing mental, emotional, and behavioral difficulties. A final chapter suggests ways to use yoga to address health conditions in order to continue to live an extraordinary life.Yoga Therapy is a practical manual with a systematic approach of considering the nature of each health condition and the specific asanas, pranayamas, and meditations most helpful in healing it. Rather than adopting a narrow medical model of healing as the reduction or elimination of symptoms, Stephens invites the reader to relate to health as a continuous, dynamic process of self-care in which the qualities of personal experience and social connectivity matter. He illustrates that how we live our lives--including our emotional states, nutrition, sleep, relationships, and sense of purpose--is reflected in our sense of balance (or imbalance) and wellbeing (or disease). Comprehensive, accessible, and informed by Mark Stephens's decades of deep study, practice, and teaching of yoga, this will become an indispensable reference for anyone who wants to modify their yoga practices for healing and well-being.