A guest article by Wiebke Martin
How positive the practice can be and what you should pay attention to
I was like many other yogis: I only started an intensive and daily yoga practice when I was in great inner despair. I was plagued by severe anxiety and panic attacks that severely restricted my everyday life. Doctors prescribed medication that had side effects and only helped for a short time. It was my inner voice that told me that I had to start doing yoga again after a break of several years. The problem: At that point, it was unthinkable for me to take part in an open yoga class. I felt too bad physically and mentally, which is why I specifically looked for private lessons.
The first yoga class had such an intense and positive effect on me
Through a recommendation, I found a yoga teacher from India who had also completed training in yoga therapy. The chemistry was right from the first phone call and I told her about my problem. We arranged to meet for our first private lesson. We started very gently and by the end of the lesson, for the first time in months, I felt like I had both feet firmly on the ground: no shaking in my legs and the feeling of something like inner peace. For me, that was almost a miracle at the time and immediately triggered an incredible feeling of happiness.
Of course, this feeling was not permanent at that point, because yoga is many things, but not a "quick fix" that brings healing or permanent improvement overnight. However, I knew that I wanted to feel this good feeling again and started practicing twice a week with my teacher. At first, we focused on sun salutations and standing poses. We noticed early on that backbends had a very confrontational effect on me and made me cry. So we wanted to concentrate on building up strength and doing one or two gentle backbends for a short time and with the help of props.
Despite the difficulties that certain asanas presented for me during practice, the feeling at the end of each class was incredibly good. Stopping the practice was not an option for me. On the contrary: After a few weeks, I switched to a daily yoga practice. My teacher then also integrated meditation and pranayama into the class. This worked well for me; however, caution is generally advised here if you suffer from anxiety or are teaching people with anxiety.
Are breathing exercises suitable for people with panic attacks and anxiety?
Breathing exercises bring you closer not only to your breath, but also to yourself. You reach a completely different level of feeling! This can trigger exactly these symptoms in people who suffer from panic attacks and anxiety. Incorrect breathing often plays a major role in both.
For this reason, it is important to slowly establish a connection to the breath: first through simple breath awareness exercises and only later with pranayama techniques, such as Kapalabhati.
Back then, I would have liked yoga teachers to be more sensitive in open courses. Kapalabhati, for example, is often taught without pointing out that participants may feel dizzy or unable to breathe at the beginning. Yoga teachers also often come up to participants and assist by placing their hand on their stomach. I would like to see consideration given to whether the participant actually wants this: they may not be practicing because the exercise makes them afraid - and not because they don't understand the exercise.
28% suffer from mental illness - this is how we as yoga teachers must react
As yoga teachers, we have to create a safe space for our participants. According to a study, around 28% of people in Germany suffer from a mental illness such as anxiety, depression or post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Everyone can work out for themselves how high the chance is of having affected people as participants in their own course without knowing about it.
I am now a yoga teacher myself and try to pass on my experiences in my classes and to take them into account as a teacher myself.
In my classes, I place great importance on encouraging participants to really listen to their physical signals and only go into a position as far as feels good for them. To do this, I often guide them in small steps. I also think it is important to point out the potentially confrontational effect of backbends. I always combine this with the reminder that participants can leave the position immediately if they feel uncomfortable.
Just recently, a friend of mine who suffers from PTSD told me that her psychotherapist had sent her to a yoga class. She had no idea that the focus of the class would be on backbends and what they could do. She told me that the yoga class turned out to be a terrible experience for her. Such reports hurt my soul because they are so unnecessary and make it difficult for people for whom yoga could do so much good to access it.
I took the time to explain my experiences and the effect of the asanas to her. She wished that the teacher at the time had done the same at the beginning of the class. She was simply shocked at what this asana group, which shows us so much in our vulnerability, had triggered in her.
6 tips if you suffer from a mental illness and want to start doing yoga
If you suffer from anxiety or panic attacks and would like to start yoga but can't imagine attending open classes, I would recommend the following from my own experience:
1. Find yoga teachers with additional training in yoga therapy or trauma-sensitive yoga.
2. Start with individual lessons or in a small group.
3. If private lessons put you off financially, you can talk about it: In my experience, most yoga teachers will accommodate you with their prices.
4. Don't put pressure on yourself and take it slow: Practice briefly and regularly rather than intensively, but only once a week.
5. In the beginning, practice only a few minutes of pranayama and meditation.
6. Mantras can be a good introduction to meditation because you concentrate on the mantra instead of your body or your breathing.
4 tips when teaching yoga in open classes
1. During the asana practice, briefly explain how certain postures (e.g. backbends) can work and point out to the participants that they can leave them at any time.
2. Be cautious with hands-on assists if you notice that there is resistance to going deeper into the pose.
3. Avoid hands-on assists in pranayama such as Kapalabhati. Instead, explain the breathing exercises in detail and encourage participants to take breaks when it becomes too much for them.
4. Instead of assuming that every participant will find it easy to close their eyes, you can say, "Close your eyes if you like. Alternatively, keep your gaze down and focused on a point on the floor in front of you." These cues help participants who suffer from mental health conditions such as anxiety and PTSD understand that it's OK not to be able to sit with their eyes closed. Instead, you invite them to practice acceptance.
In my opinion, creating a safe space for the participants in our yoga classes should be our top priority. They should feel cared for and supported. Yoga can help and support mental illnesses and crisis situations on so many levels. However, it is up to us yoga teachers to make this millennia-old holistic system accessible to people for whom it is not natural to open their hearts in a wheel towards the sky or to meditate with their eyes closed. Because only then will we achieve that more and more people take the path inward and experience inner peace. And that ultimately benefits all of us.
Wiebke Martin
Wiebke teaches classic Hatha as well as modern Vinyasa and Yin Yoga. For her, yoga is an indispensable part of her everyday life: This includes asanas, but also pranayama and meditation. She is convinced that yoga strengthens you physically and mentally and gives you strength and calm in times of crisis. The hope of introducing other people to the diverse effects of yoga and helping them to find stability, strength and inner peace in difficult life situations prompted her to become a yoga teacher. She places great importance on teaching classes that are completely free of dogma. All participants should have their own experiences with yoga and find out for themselves how yoga can enrich their lives.