Posts Tagged “Yoga”

Healing from an eating disorder doesn’t end with your discharge from treatment. That’s why it’s so important that eating disorder care helps patients develop effective coping strategies, self-care practices, and emotion regulation skills to use long after formal treatment ends. Transitioning from specialized eating disorder care into the “real world” can be jarring. Equipping patients with the tools and confidence to navigate life’s inevitable challenges ensures their recovery begins with a solid foundation.

Both yoga and mindfulness are tools that support the reconnection to mind and body essential in eating disorder treatment. They also protect a continuing recovery, offering patients accessible grounding techniques to confront urges and stressful moments. At Veritas Collaborative, we integrate yoga and mindfulness as holistic, skill-based therapies within our evidence-based treatment model.

Given the mainstream popularity of yoga and mindfulness, it’s critical to differentiate eating disorder-informed practices from the more insidious variations of yoga and mindfulness that have been commodified by wellness culture.

Self-care can sometimes function as self-preservation; in your recovery, practicing self-care is a necessity and a healthy way to find peace and joy. In fact, regular self-care is critical to sustaining recovery from an eating disorder.

Episode description: 

Heidi Andersen is a Licensed Clinical Mental Health Counselor Supervisor, Certified Eating Disorder Specialist Supervisor, Registered Yoga Teacher, and Embodiment Specialist. She has worked with people struggling with eating disorders as a therapist in residential, PHP, IOP, and outpatient levels of care. She currently maintains an outpatient group practice of body-centered psychotherapists specializing in weight-inclusive treatment for the intersection of trauma, attachment wounds, and eating disorders through an anti-oppression lens and somatic approach.

In this episode of Peace Meal, we explore the concept of embodiment and how it relates to eating disorders and recovery. Heidi covers the reasons we can become disembodied, as well as different ways we can work toward reconnecting with our body. Heidi also dives into how important it is for healthcare providers who help others with their embodiment to work on their own. She offers yoga as one tool in increasing embodiment, and it is a practice she finds especially valuable to ground herself on bad body image days. Recognizing that embodiment can often feel unsafe for people who are not in white, straight-sized bodies, Heidi hopes for a future where embodiment is more accessible for all.

Episode description:

Lisa Wingårdh is a yoga teacher based in Stockholm, Sweden. Fully devoted to helping others reconnect with their body and breath, she is especially passionate about eating disorder recovery given her personal experience with anorexia and bulimia.

In this episode of Peace Meal, we discuss the role of yoga in eating disorder treatment and recovery. Lisa shares her journey to discovering yoga and describes the ways it has nurtured her body, mind, and soul. Speaking from experience and training, she explains the benefits of yoga to those healing from eating disorders as well as reasons people might find the practice intimidating or challenging. She also offers gentle advice for making sure our yoga practice remains self-compassionate and customized to our own needs and lives.

Yoga is an ideal component of therapy for individuals with eating disorders. The word “yoga,” translated from Sanskrit, means yoke, the union of self with the divine, of mind and body. The practice fits in especially well with the therapeutic model that is followed at Veritas Collaborative, Dialectical Behavioral Therapy: learning radical acceptance while acknowledging the need for change.