How Yoga Can Help with Covid-19 Recovery (Including for long-haulers)

The knowledge of foundational yoga therapy for Covid-19 recovery is vital for studios, teachers, and yoga students. No, returning to your yoga studio won’t bring back your sense of smell after Covid-19…but it could improve lung function, reduce inflammation and safely help physical recovery from Covid-19.

Yoga Anatomy Academy is pleased to announce a guest faculty offering evidence-based yoga online courses for CEU credit, and the first is with Ingrid Yang, MD presenting “Yoga Therapy for Covid-19 Recovery”.

“This presentation is a combination of countless hours of research reading cutting edge studies and my experience in working with COVID-19 patients in the hospital and in yoga therapy.”

Ingrid Yang, MD, E-RYT, C-IAYT

Ingrid is an internal medicine physician working on the front lines of the Covid pandemic in California, a yoga therapist, and a published author. She has been teaching yoga for over 20 years and is the author of the books Adaptive Yoga and Hatha Yoga Asanas, as well as a contributor to Yoga Journal.

With 158 million diagnosed cases of Covid-19 worldwide, yoga teachers and yoga therapists will need to be prepared to assist those who have suffered. We will need tools for optimizing healing, reducing inflammation, and returning foundational full breathing (respiratory function) in order to bring our best selves (if we became infected) or our students in recovery back to the mat. That is what this workshop offers.

Although some may say the end of the Covid-19 pandemic is near, the truth is far more uncertain.

1. More highly infectious variants are wreaking havoc on hospital systems in multiple countries and locales around the world, most notably India and Brazil at the moment. These variants are global issues. Airborne illnesses are not geographically bound. (citation).
2. Herd immunity remains elusive, and some say, unlikely or impossible (citation). Part of this is the very slim but real chance of reinfection or reduced vaccine efficacy for new variants.
3. Our new “normal” will include covid-19. Covid is likely to become endemic, like the flu, with infections occurring seasonally or year round.

While no one has a crystal ball to see what the future brings, chances are good it will bring more Covid-19 infections.

This ubiquity is why the yoga community needs to understand the stakes, and be prepared to help those who have recovered from Covid-19 to maintain and repair lung health, using the evidence.

This online course covers:

• The pathogenesis of Covid-19
• What it means to be a long hauler
• Phases of active infection, including the pulmonary, pro-inflammatory and pro-thromic phase
• What yoga can (and can’t) do for inflammation

You will walk away with evidence-based:

• Covid-19 Breathing protocol
• Appropriate asanas for to help ease ongoing pulmonary, cardiac and neurological symptoms of Covid-19
• How diaphragmatic breathing can increase the efficacy of respiration to boost energy, reduce fatigue and find more

At the height of this pandemic, many colleagues, including myself, had to isolate from the people we love. We weren’t able to see our families.

We struggled with supplies and we lost more patients than we could ever imagine. Each and every one of the patients I lost, I still remember with aching in my chest.

It has been an impossibly hard year.

And now, as we are on the precipice getting to the other side, I am remembering them. I am remembering this year. All we have seen, felt, overcome, and endured.

And I want to honor those we lost. We owe it to them to continue to wear masks and socially distance… for just a few more months until we can all get vaccinated and resume our lives. We owe it to them to live the lives they lost. Their deaths can’t have meant nothing.

I honor them by continuing to write about this pandemic. That we’re not there yet. We can do this, friends. We are so close to the end.

Are you going to cross this finish line kicking and screaming, or with arms up and triumphant for the way in which you honored those we lost? I’m going to put my mask back on, day after day, and so will you. The finish line is in sight. Let’s cross triumphantly together. Let’s do this. Love, Dr. Yang

Ingrid Yang, MD

To build the skills to offer yoga for Covid-19 recovery, please register for Yoga Therapy for Covid-19 Recovery. You’ll get 2 hours of Yoga Alliance and IAYT -approved CE credit once you complete the quiz.

Register

Donate to India

One last thing: India needs our help for its Covid-19 fight.

“[Right now in India] it’s not about having doctors and nurses. It’s about resources. Oxygen. Medications. Hospital beds. Please consider donating to relief in India for their devastating COVID-19 surge right now.” – Ingrid.

If you are able to give, here are our suggestions:

Apne App Women Worldwide – provides oxygen tanks, ensuring food, medicines, vaccinations & hospital referrals in the deadly India Covid-19 second wave.

Milaap – Raising funds for India’s medical emergencies and social causes.

Making the Difference (Mumbai) via DonateKart – working closely with all public hospitals and nursing homes in Mumbai to provide them with life-saving healthcare equipment and supplies.