Yoga for veterans is a class where veterans can come together to build community and learn gentle stretches to help ease suffering from combat and post traumatic stress. Students will be guided to move and breath to bring healing to the whole warrior.
Instructor:Â Kat Dessommes, Young Warrior Certified Instructor
Cost: $30 for a six week session.
Ages:Â 18 & Older
Day: Wednesdays, Starting August 7th   (8/7-9/11)
Time: Noon- 1 p.m.
Where: Juanita Pohl Center (8513 SW Tualatin Rd, Tualatin, OR 97062)
How can yoga help?
Yoga’s physical postures promote healthy, flexible bodies and often provide relief from pain. The class is so gentle that veterans, many of whom have other health conditions or serious physical limitations, find the postures comfortable and easy to do. Yoga directly addresses the fight-or-flight response, which is at the heart of PTSD. The fight-or-flight response is a reaction that prepares the body to fight or flee from perceived threat. Because yoga deals directly with the mind-body connection, it helps veterans retrain the fight-or-flight response. Many trauma survivors can’t “feel” their bodies, and yoga helps to reintegrate body and mind. Now, when they confront a situation that triggers their memories, instead of resorting to aggression or drowning in fear, they have other options: deep breathing, for example, as a means to self-calm.
Other benefits include:
o The release of emotional issues.
o Help towards relaxing and strengthening the body.
o Unfreezing bad memories and creating new bodily memories.
o Giving feelings of joy and personal empowerment.
o The mind becomes more clear and open.
o It produces acceptance of the self.
o Life feels better balanced.
o It allows one to safely express stored emotions such as guilt, shame, anger, sadness and grief so those feelings can be understood and integrated.
o A regular yoga practice helps alleviate symptoms of PTSD including anger, anxiety, depression, guilt and paranoia.