Integrative Healing with Art and Yoga!

I have practiced yoga for most of my adult life and have been involved in the arts even longer. I find both blissfully nurturing. For the past 17 months I’ve practiced yoga from home and attended concerts, museums and galleries online. My entire being ached to return to what was normal for me.

In our feature “Art’s Embrace,” by Sandra Yeyati, we learn how art can be a powerful force for healing, as well as a source of inspiration and a focus for social change. In a Florida medical center, dance is bringing Parkinson’s patients joy and increased mobility. In Detroit, art therapists help cancer patients reconstruct their sense of identity and find expression for painful emotions. In Los Angeles, professional symphony musicians give joyous performances in concert with people devastated by poverty, addiction and trauma. In Milwaukee, actors and caregivers join with people with dementia to perform plays and to produce art exhibits and books, bringing fresh life to care facilities.

For the 50 million Americans living with chronic pain, relief is hard to come by. In this month’s Healing Ways article “Conquering Chronic Pain,” by Ronica O’Hara we learn about alternatives. With surgery and injections often failing to provide long-lasting relief, major medical centers and holistic practitioners alike are offering integrative approaches that draw on a range of modalities. To calm down an overwrought nervous system that amps up pain levels, some pioneering doctors are deploying effective pain-reducing strategies that include such simple steps as expressive writing and five-second mindfulness moments. With a sidebar on promising modalities, including CBD, turmeric, hypnotherapy and low-dose naltrexone.

In this month’s Fit Body article on “Yoga To Heal Trauma,” by Marlaina Donato, it becomes clear how Trauma-informed yoga can pick up where talk therapy leaves off by quelling the body’s overactive fight-or-flight responses. It targets the amygdala, the danger detector in the brain, and the vagus nerve that runs from the brain to the abdomen, which plays a vital role in processing trauma. The gentle stretches of yoga guided by a trained trauma specialist can help to free up memories, alleviate troubling emotions, and release chronic somatic tension and hypervigilance.

Many people are cautious about returning to public venues, even though most are taking extreme precautions to help us stay safe whilst continuing online offerings. Questions loom about masks and vaccines. I encourage everyone to educate yourself and seek your own answers either from sources you trust, who have nothing to gain, or by doing your own original research. Always mindful others may not agree and offering mutual respect when views differ.

To conscious living,
Pamela Gallina, Publisher