Medical yoga for PTSD

Back to feeling - how medical yoga can help with post-traumatic stress disorder

Traumatic experiences leave traces - not only in the memory, but in the entire body system. Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a profound disorder of self-regulation, often accompanied by inner restlessness, flashbacks, sleep disorders, pain and emotional numbness.

In this context, medical yoga can offer a gentle, body-oriented way of restoring safety, self-awareness and vegetative stability - mindful, trauma-sensitive and deeply effective.

What is PTSD?

PTSD occurs as a result of an overwhelming experience that overtaxes the nervous system's coping mechanisms - such as violence, accident, abuse, war or medical trauma.

Typical symptoms are

• Re-experiencing (flashbacks, nightmares)

• Avoidance behavior and emotional encapsulation

• Overexcitation (jumpiness, irritability, sleep disturbance)

• Physical complaints (e.g. chronic pain, palpitations, exhaustion)

• Difficulty relaxing or "feeling"

PTSD is more than a psychological condition - it is a physically stored experience of loss of control, numbness and helplessness. This is why medical yoga as a body-based method can provide valuable impulses.

🧘 What is medical yoga?

Medical Yoga combines the essence of classic yoga techniques with insights from modern pain and trauma therapy, polyvagal theory and functional movement pedagogy. The practice is mindfulness-based, individually adaptable and therapeutically sound.

For people with PTSD, medical yoga offers above all:

• a new relationship with the body - beyond fear or avoidance

• Strengthening the inner sense of security and control

• Calming of the autonomic nervous system

• Mindful sensing without being overwhelmed

How does medical yoga work for PTSD?

1. breath as a bridge to self-regulation

The breath is one of the most powerful access points to the nervous system - gentle, available at all times, controllable. In PTSD, the breathing pattern is often shallow, irregular or unconscious. Medical yoga helps to rediscover the breath as an anchoring anchor:

• Prolonged exhalation

• Breathing waves while lying down with weight on the abdomen

• Humming ("mmm") or throat breathing (Ujjayi) for vagus stimulation

• Breath as a means of self-soothing

2. somatic mindfulness: sensing without excessive demands

Many trauma victims have "left the body" in order to survive. Medical yoga invites you to return to your body step by step - not through demanding movement, but through small, safe impulses:

• Easy flow of movement when sitting or lying down

• Guided body journeys with the opportunity to take a break

• Self-touch for reorientation ("I am here.")

• Clear, predictable processes for reassurance

3. from freeze to movement - trauma-sensitive mobilization

PTSD is often associated with a feeling of numbness ("freeze"). Medical yoga helps to gently release this freeze - not through performance, but through rhythmic, regulated movement:

• Shaking exercises, shivering - controlled and relieving

• Micro-movements with a focus on joint axes

• Movement rituals with repetition and structure

4. rebuilding security and self-efficacy

Medical yoga strengthens the feeling: "I can regulate myself." This experience is often a turning point for traumatized people. Helpful are:

• Exercises with a choice ("Stopping is allowed")

• Sensing and learning to name boundaries

• Gentle strengthening for body conditioning

• Integration of "containing" positions (embodiment of support)

Who is Medical Yoga for PTSD suitable for?

• People with post-traumatic stress disorder (after consultation with therapist)

• People affected by developmental trauma, chronic tension, dissociation

• Patients with somatoform complaints and vegetative overexcitation

• Therapists who work with body-oriented methods (e.g. psychotherapy, bodywork, yoga)

• People who long for a mindful, self-effective approach to healing

Conclusion: Healing begins with feeling

Medical yoga for PTSD is not a substitute for psychotherapy, but it is a deeply effective form of support that is close to the body. It creates spaces of safety, contact without excessive demands and a new relationship to one's own inner self. In a body that is experienced as safe, healing becomes possible - not through struggle, but through connection.

Would you like to learn how medical yoga can be used in a trauma-sensitive way in therapy?
Then discover our training courses and webinars - especially for therapists, bodyworkersand yoga teachers.
👉 Find out more now at www.hockenholz.com