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We provide you with articles on brain science, timely topics, and healthy living for those affected by neurologic challenges or seeking better brain health.  

Exercise
By John Hanc

Adaptive Yoga Helps Those with Disabilities

Students practicing adaptive yoga
Props such as straps and blocks allow students to adapt poses to their abilities. Courtesy adaptiveyogalive.com 

Owen Cooper was skeptical when his partner, Melissa Crisp, suggested they take a yoga class. “You'll like it,” she assured him. “It'll be something fun we can do together.”

Cooper wasn't convinced. After all, Crisp has cerebral palsy, which requires her to use a wheelchair. It also affects her speech, which must be translated by Cooper, who likewise has cerebral palsy, although a less severe case. He also remembered that her first experience with yoga (before they met) was frustrating because she couldn't do many of the poses.

Crisp, now 46, assured him that this class—Yoga for People with Disabilities and Chronic Conditions—would be different. “Owen is very analytical,” she says. “I thought he might find this class interesting.”

He did, and in the decade since they first attended, the two, who are now married, have been regulars in the class. “The practice helps me let go of notions about what I'm supposed to be able to do,” says Cooper, 47. “We don't expect yoga to fix us,” says Crisp, “but it's helped us develop more constructive patterns of movement. Over time, these patterns keep us mobile as we get older.”

The 90-minute class at the Nest Yoga Studio in Oakland, CA—where Crisp and Cooper live—is designed to accommodate any disability, says JoAnn Lyons, who has been teaching it since the mid-1990s. Participants like Crisp and Cooper may lean over a stack of blankets to assume the downward-facing dog pose or lie on oblong stability balls to extend their backs. “Every neurologic disability has a myriad of manifestations,” says Lyons. “You have to teach the student, not the pose.”

Mindy Eisenberg, whose late mother had multiple sclerosis (MS), has been teaching adaptive yoga in Detroit for 20 years and wrote a book on the subject, Adaptive Yoga Moves Any Body (Orange Cat Press, 2015). “Traditional yoga postures are modified with props such as chairs, blocks, blankets, and straps to make them more accessible to people with a range of movement challenges,” Eisenberg explains.

One of her students, Adam Powell of Fenton, MI, says, “After a yoga practice, I always feel like I've gained more movement in my midsection.” Powell, 39, who has MS, explains: “I have this ‘corset' feeling around my torso all the time. The side bends and twists really help to loosen that up. Not having my core squeezing me has improved my balance and walking.”

More neurologists are recognizing the value of adaptive yoga. “I've absolutely seen the benefits for my patients with Parkinson's,” says Indu Subramanian, MD, professor of neurology at UCLA's David Geffen School of Medicine, who first got interested in yoga for herself early in her career. “It improved my mood, my sleep, and the way I reacted to things.” Maybe it would have similar benefits for her patients, Dr. Subramanian thought.

So she completed a yoga teacher training program, studying with Matthew Sanford, an adaptive yoga teacher in Minnesota. Now she recommends it to her patients, who have told her it calms their anxiety.

A 2019 study in JAMA Neurology found that yoga and meditation helped improve mobility and motor function in people with mild to moderate Parkinson's disease. Yoga also played a part in reducing anxiety and depressive symptoms while increasing spiritual well-being and quality of life, according to the study.

To find a class, Eisenberg suggests asking local yoga studios; they might have chair yoga, for example, which is practiced while seated and is often done by older students with limited mobility or poor balance.

But even that term can be misleading, says Renée Le Verrier, who teaches a class in adaptive yoga near her home on Whidbey Island, WA. “I use chairs in my class, but I wouldn't call it ‘chair yoga,'” says Le Verrier, a stroke survivor who also has Parkinson's disease. Like most adaptive yoga teachers, she uses props so students can achieve the benefits—if not the picture-perfect form—of each pose.

Le Verrier consulted with two neurologists, an occupational therapist, and a physical therapist while developing her teacher training. One of the doctors, Lewis R. Sudarsky, MD, a neurologist at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, wrote the foreword for Le Verrier's book Yoga for Movement Disorders: Building Strength, Balance and Flexibility for Parkinson's Disease and Dystonia (Merit Publishing International, 2008). “About 30 percent of our teacher trainings are attended by physical and occupational therapists, rehabilitation trainers, and social workers,” says Le Verrier. “The interactive learning and sharing enhance the training.”

Start Yoga with this Simple Breath Exercise

Breathing is a fundamental but often overlooked aspect of yoga, says Mindy Eisenberg, an adaptive yoga teacher in Detroit. She recommends beginning every yoga session with mindful breathing.

Get into a comfortable seated or reclining position. Relax the tongue and jaw; the lips may touch gently or remain slightly open.

Inhale through your nose into the back of your throat. Feel your belly rise as the inhale expands into your rib cage and up toward your collarbones, with your sternum seeming to lift toward your chin. Exhale through your nose, and feel your chest, front ribs, and belly recede like a wave.

Tune in to the quality of your breath without judging it. Focus on breathing from your abdomen. Each inhalation and exhalation should last the same amount of time: Start with three seconds for each and lengthen as you get more comfortable. Over time you’ll learn to breathe longer, deeper, and stronger. A longer inhale can increase energy and alertness; a longer exhale reduces anxiety and tension.

By taking these slow, intentional breaths, you’re now practicing yoga. “It’s not just the pose with your leg behind your head,” Eisenberg says. “Breathing is yoga too.”

Adaptive Yoga Resources