Yoga Therapy for Eating Disorder Support
Information for Health Professionals
… that can be used to support your patients experiencing an eating disorder. Whether it’s in-patient, day treatment, residential or community support, yoga therapy can help people living with eating disorders feel more at home in their body, and less under attack from their own minds.
Yoga therapy is an adjunct therapy…
Yoga therapy involves…
… as many or as few aspects of a yoga practice as each person feels comfortable with. These can include:
physical movement/asana
breathing practices/pranayama
meditation/dhyana
chanting/mantra
energetic gestures and practices/mudra and kriya
As everyone’s personality, interest, and lived experience is different, the yoga therapist and client work together to create a practice that works for the client’s own wellbeing. While several people may have the same health condition and wellbeing goals, it’s probable that they will all have a different yoga practice that suits them best.
… in many different ways. While for most people, studio yoga is a great place to feel the benefits of a regular yoga practice, some yoga studios aren’t necessarily always the safest places for people with eating disorders. Because of the strong emphasis on the physical aspect of yoga in studio classes, and the standardised one-size-fits-all approach, people with eating disorders may struggle to find the healing and support they are looking for. For more information on studio yoga and eating disorders, you can refer to this blog post.
Yoga therapy is different to studio yoga…
… is still a relatively new field. Often a study on “yoga” will have no explanation of what practices were used, how the yoga was offered, and how the yoga was practiced, which makes results difficult to interpret (as stated in this 2023 review by J O’Brien et al). However, there are some promising studies being published when it comes to yoga therapy and how it can support eating disorder recovery:
Decreased eating disorder examination scores, and significantly reduced food preoccupation, without any impact on BMI (TR Carei et al, 2010)
Decreased binge eating frequency, emotional regulation difficulties and self-criticism, and increased self-compassion (MA Brennan, WJ Whelton & D Sharpe, 2020)
Statistically significant decreases in anxiety, depression, and body image disturbance in those attending outpatient eating disorder treatment (A Hall et al, 2016)
Large and statistically significant reductions in binge eating behaviours (S McIver, P O’Halloran & M McGartland, 2009)
Research on yoga therapy…
Interested in experiencing yoga therapy for eating disorder support?
Use the code HEALTHPROFESSIONAL at checkout to explore the 4 week group yoga therapy program for free.
Yoga Therapy Services
Yoga therapy is traditionally practiced individually, developing a client-therapist relationship over 3-6 months or longer. I offer this traditional model as gold standard treatment, but also provide clients with less intensive options to suit their varied needs.
12 Week 1:1 Yoga Therapy
For patients who:
- would benefit from more 1:1 support outside of the time you have together
- are committed to supporting their recovery
- are interested in exploring a mind-body connection
4 Week Group Yoga Therapy
For patients who:
- want some extra tools in their recovery toolbox
- are able and willing to move through a self-guided program
- want a basic understanding of how yoga can help support their needs
Free Online Yoga Therapy Resources
For patients, health professionals, and loved ones who want more information about yoga therapy in general, and how it can help in eating disorder recovery.
