MENTAL HEALTH

Mental health is not a tick box label (I’m well, I’m not well), but a continuum which we move up and down on all our lives. Whether or not we have an official “diagnosis”, we will all at some time experience sadness, anxiety, stress and loss.

We will probably find that we know a little about paranoia or delusions too, the world not always being how we believe it to be. Whether we are floating near the middle of the continuum, or dangerously close to an edge, Kundalini Yoga is likely to improve mental health. It helps us both to cope with negative emotions, and to generate very positive experiences.

Yoga works within a vast framework, considering and balancing the complex interactions between all aspects of our selves and the world around us. Starting with the tangible physical body, we can travel via awareness and meditation through more subtle and transcendental aspects of our experience. All the while, balancing, harmonising and letting go of what is no longer needed. The practice of yoga provides a background of balance which both greatly complements and enhances conventional allopathic treatments, and can be a healing process in its own right.

Evidence suggests that yoga-based interventions offer potential as a safe and efficacious addition to conventional treatments of mental and emotional disorders, like schizophrenia, depression and anxiety, cognitive impairments, eating disorders etc., and can be used as an adjunct approach to improve quality of life and alleviate symptoms.

The practice of yoga also helps people forge a sense of connection and belonging, especially if they learn in a group, which can be hugely beneficial for those who may otherwise become isolated by their mental health issues.