Yoga Medicine

Feel pressured to make your classes new and exciting? More complex? More demanding? Today hosts Tiffany and Rachel offer tips for yoga teachers who are ready to work smarter, not harder, when crafting class sequences. In this episode, we talk about the importance of starting with a clear focal point and a base class template, and the benefits of reusing past sequences. We also discuss the two part...

In communication, stories and symbols have the capacity to reach us in ways that facts and figures do not. So today host Rachel dips her toes into Hindu mythology with returning guest Steph Wall. In this episode, we talk about the importance of mythology and its links to many of the poses we know and practice. Steph also offers advice on how to introduce symbolic stories into classes where student...

Today hosts Tiffany and Katja talk tips for keeping calm under pressure. This episode is all about choking up or freezing under pressure, which can apply to so many different situations whether you're a yoga teacher, a presenter, or an athlete. We talk about the mechanisms behind choking under high-pressure situations and offer tools that you can use to prepare yourself for situations where you mi...

Yoga teachers love a good training. When in doubt, many of us tend to look for more technical skills – more evidence, more information, more protocols and strategies. But what if the true magic of the teacher-student relationship lies elsewhere: not in perfection, but in presence. Today's episode hones in on right brain or relational teaching skills, which are less about WHAT we teach and more abo...

Today we are busting balance myths with two people who are passionate about balance and standing stability. Host Rachel talks to Sava Papos, is a long-time yoga teacher and Yoga Medicine Therapeutic Specialist, now immersed in a degree in Exercise and Sport Physiology.  In this episode, we discuss balance as a trainable skill and a key aspect of physical performance, providing advice to teachers a...

Today's media landscape - which equates leadership with certainty of opinion, popularity, or charisma - can be challenging for yoga teachers to navigate. So today, hosts Tiffany and Rachel explore what leadership can look like in the yoga world.  We discuss the importance of humility and vulnerability, the challenge of balancing evidence-based with more traditional inputs, and whether there are di...

Most of us have loaded beliefs related to the core and core strength. While most hold a grain of truth, plenty of these preconceptions are inaccurate, incomplete, or just plain unhelpful when it comes to our individual yoga and movement practices.  Today host Rachel and returning guest Jenni Tarma unpack the most common core myths and misconceptions. In this episode, we explore the anatomy and fun...

Most of us have a complicated relationship with social media, but it can be a powerful business tool if we learn how to harness it effectively. Today host Rachel talks social media marketing with returning guest Dana Diament, a yoga teacher and graphic designer with years of experience in branding. Dana creates clarity around social media communication by prompting us all to ask ourselves exactly...

Today hosts Tiffany and Katja hone in on another topic related to pranayama: the science of breathing less. In this episode, we talk about the natural fear of retention of the breath and what we can do to combat this fear. We also connect the dots between concepts like intermittent hypoxic training, breathing less volume, and voluntary hypoventilation and talk about how all those practices may aff...

Today host Rachel speaks with returning guest Alice Blunden – a Yoga Medicine Therapeutic Specialist, schoolteacher, and creator of The Yoga Project UK – about accessible ways we can translate yoga tools and techniques for children as they navigate the potentially challenging transition back to school. In this episode, Alice shares a handful of her favorite techniques that you can teach to childre...

Today hosts Tiffany and Katja take you on a stroll through the breathwork landscape. In this episode, the pair gives an overview of the origins of different breathing practices - covering Eastern traditions from India to China, techniques founded by "psychedelic" transformational and scientific communities as well as practices stemming from Eastern Europe. If you've ever wanted an overview of wher...

Whether we are athletes or not, we all have areas in our lives where we want to perform well. Today host Rachel speaks with returning guest Dr. Daya Grant about how aspects of yoga philosophy can help us do that - by improving our focus and concentration.  Dr. Grant helps athletes and other high performers train their brains with the same care they invest in training their bodies. She draws heavil...

Today's topic is an interesting one that comes up a lot in the yoga world. In this episode, hosts Tiffany and Katja talk about the latest research and newest findings on the Polyvagal Theory. They discuss the evolutionary biology that Polyvagal Theory is based around, the neuroanatomy that's involved, and assumptions that have been made about this complex aspect of the body. Listen in to learn abo...

Today hosts Tiffany and Rachel talk about building a healthy relationship with social media. These platforms have become a ubiquitous facet of our lives, so in this episode, we examine the way we use social media as yoga students and teachers. We discuss the pros of social media, like its capacity to help us connect with other people, the sense of community it can create, and the resource-sharing...

Military personnel and first responders show up to other people's worst day, every day. Exposed to workplace experiences the rest of us can't imagine, some experience post-traumatic stress, and some work through that experience to demonstrate post-traumatic growth. Can yoga play a part in biasing these populations toward growth? Today's guest, Dr. Nicole McKenna, is here to share her thoughts on t...

The practice of Yin yoga is unusual in that it asks us to do the opposite of what we do in the rest of our lives. That contrast is powerful, but adjusting to it can bring up challenges. In this episode, returning guest Shannon Stephens is back to talk to host Rachel about the common challenges of Yin Yoga for both students and teachers and shares her tips on how we can navigate them skillfully to...

After traumatic life events, some people experience negative mental and physical health outcomes, while others not only survive but thrive.  There's a growing body of research on the strategies that prime our potential for resilience to adverse events, but less understanding of the neural pathways that underpin them. Today guest Valerie Knopik Ph. D. returns to explore three of these pathways with...

We don't all strive for elite physical performance, but we do all place demands on our bodies. Some of the internal signals that we receive as a result could be interpreted as pain, so how do we know when we should push through and when we should pull back? We have talked in previous episodes about the complex phenomenon of pain, and how deeply enmeshed our perception of pain is with our beliefs a...

In our busy lives, it can be challenging to allow ourselves to truly rest, but there are potent benefits to be gained when we do. So today hosts Tiffany and Rachel dive into the stillness and quiet of restorative yoga. In this episode, we outline the key characteristics of restorative yoga and how they work to soothe the nervous system and offer an antidote to stress. We discuss who restorative yo...

Today host Rachel speaks with returning guest Jenni Tarma about hypermobility disorders, which appear more often in yoga students than in the general population. In this episode, Jenni describes the wide range of symptoms linked to hypermobility, some of the challenges yoga teachers face when working with students on this spectrum, as well as how yoga can help. Since hypermobility disorders can br...

Today hosts Tiffany and Katja discuss fascia and the immune system. In this episode, learn what role the fascia plays in the immune system and which less obvious components of fascia contribute to this relationship. We also cover why fibroblasts are dynamic participants of immune processes, and how fluid flow versus stagnation play into immune function. Listen in to learn how cells within our fasc...

Often it's the details that make our experience; in the context of a yoga class, it's not just about the poses and practices we teach but the WAY we teach them that determines whether our class feels welcoming. Today host Rachel speaks with Yoga Medicine therapeutic specialist Elena Cheung. Elena shares her tips for creating impactful all-level classes that welcome the wide range of people who att...

Today hosts Tiffany and Rachel explore one of the more common challenges yoga students face: shoulder pain when arms are overhead. We shed some light on this common issue, unpacking the anatomical structures involved, and discussing possible triggers. Given how often we take our arms overhead – in yoga, sport, and daily life – we are likely to come across this issue at some point. So whether you a...

Compassion itself is vast and inexhaustible but for those who care for others, systemic factors, secondary traumatic stress and cumulative overwhelm can become barriers to being able to express it fully and freely.  Today host Rachel talks about compassion fatigue with returning guest Rashmi Bismark. In this episode, we discuss the importance of preventative self-care for caregivers and how even s...

Today hosts Rachel and Tiffany continue the conversation we started in Episode 56, exploring controversial yoga cues. There is so much to say on the topic, so we are back with a second episode to unpack when these familiar cues are useful (and when they aren't), the potential downside of protective cues, and the one yoga cue that Rachel hates. Show Notes: Even the best cues don't always translate...