Restful Yoga for Fatigue
If you have chronic fatigue, Long Covid, burnout, or other health challenges including stress or trauma, yoga offers a pathway to to healing. It’s also suitable for any chronic health conditions, and you can even practice in bed!
The focus of the practice is always around healing and staying present.
Yoga for healing and renewal
Often after illness, stress or trauma, we become locked in either a flight or fight response, or our body becomes overwhelmed and shut down which makes it harder to recover.
ME/CFS or Long Covid can lead to challenges including insomnia, anxiety, an overactive mind, muscle aches, and extreme exhaustion, which do not get better with rest. By using tools including healthy breathing, very deep relaxation, and compassionate somatic awareness, yoga encourages the nervous system to soothe and reset, allowing the whole system to heal.
What we need is tender pacing and more spaciousness backed up by heaps of self-care, rest and restorative breathing. I metaphorically hold your hand to help you transform fear and fatigue, as you practice gentle Restful Yoga for Fatigue.
Reconnect with body and breath
With slow breathing through the nose and from the diaphragm, energy (prana) begins to flow, helping to untangle knots (granthis) and release old patterns (samskaras) that have been held in the body over time.
My sessions are grounded in supporting you to reconnect with your being at all levels. As the mind becomes quieter, you may begin to recognize your true essence beyond your ever-changing thoughts and emotions.
This deeper understanding leads to a sense of peace and self-acceptance that is always present, even in the face of illness or exhaustion.
Will I relapse?
Sometimes there is gentle movement but not too much, as some who practice Restful Yoga for Fatigue may be very exhausted. At all times Restful Yoga for Fatigue seeks to avoid PEM (Post-Exertional Malaise), and people are encouraged to go at their own pace and listen in to the body with kindness. Gentle breathing and conscious guided relaxation are of more benefit to those with exhaustion or pain, rather than too much movement.
Participants are guided to develop self-compassion and acceptance of the present moment by nurturing a kind connection to the body through grounding and somatic mindfulness. This brings about a sense of wellbeing and safety. I teach yoga intuitively, working with tools including the chakras and vagal toning. Clients are led to stillness and peace, so they can experience the silence and bliss of their true nature towards the end of a class. This is where the healing begins.
How will it help?
Restful Yoga for Fatigue is Trauma-Informed, meaning that everything is a choice with personal agency encouraged. The yoga I teach is also about encouraging spiritual awareness as you let go of old patterns and identities which may contribute to an identity of suffering and illness.
In my sessions I use optional mantra, restorative breathing techniques, meditation, and deep guided rest to soothe and restore the nervous system and help the flow of prana (universal life force energy). Anyone can practice Restful Yoga for Fatigue – it’s about undoing rather than doing anything. Above all it is restorative, calming and enjoyable.
If you can breathe, then you can do yoga.”
TVK Desikachar