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Coping And Healing Through Yoga

Silvester Franz
/
Flickr

For centuries, yoga has served as a healing and therapeutic practice that has helped many who have encountered trauma in their life.

"When trauma happens, there is this lack of power, this lack of choice over what is happening," says Julie Jack, founder and editor of The Exhale Project, a grant funded program that offers free yoga classes to survivors of sexual assault, domestic violence, human trafficking and other related traumas.

"Giving them the opportunity to choose for themselves and for their own body about what feels right is the priority," she says.

During this hour of Talk of Iowa, host Charity Nebbe talks with Jack, as well as the founder of Yoga for First Responders, Olivia Mead. 

Mead says that about 25 to 30 percent of police officers have stress-based physical health problems, and numbers are rising for Post-Traumatic Stress among all emergency personnel, including fire fighters and emergency medical technicians. 

"What we're teaching first responders is short practices, even as short as 3 minutes, that they can do on the job, in action, to calm and control their nervous system," says Mead.

Yoga for First Responders has more than 300 certified teachers and offers classes in many states, including Iowa.

Charity Nebbe is the host of IPR's Talk of Iowa