StOn the mats, side by side, the surgeon, the nurses and the patients sit cross-legged.The teacher, Silvia Lucchini, softly whispers the pranayama techniques to them, of breathing. In short, the faces appear more relaxed.
The green coats erase the stress and tension of shifts, while people under treatment forget their anxiety about cancer treatments, for the future. Cheerful and disarming smiles appear.
One of the two monthly yoga sessions is underway in the Aula Vetri of the San Raffaele hospital in Milan.
Yoga for cancer patients
It is an appointment developed in the context of the “Health in the Mirror” project for the recovery of the physical and psychological well-being of the sick.
The practice, together with other programs such as “fit walking”, is one of the pillars of the initiative which also includes attention to nutrition and aesthetic care.
«This appointment is very popular with patients and is always eagerly awaited by everyone. It gives them the feeling of doing something normal, it doesn’t seem related to the disease: it certainly has a big emotional impact,” he says Valentina Di Mattei, associate professor of the Vita e Salute San Raffaele University, coordinator of the clinical psychology service and manager of the Salute allo Specchio program.
He proposed the novelty after having found its benefits during a professional experience at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York.
«We offer relaxation techniques, with the alternation of dynamic sequences and static positions of varying intensity: we have patients from 18 to 75 years old and the modality changes a lot depending on the pathology.
Yoga at the service of society
The positive aspect is that in the long run yoga pushes people to share the experience and therefore to open up». No surprise.
The physical and psychological benefits of this practice are confirmed by hundreds of scientific studies: yoga improves muscle elasticity and balance, re-educates the spine and is very useful for relieving neck pain and strengthening the immune system.
Increase self-esteem, enhance self-awareness and fight insomnia.
And again: the practice would increase brain cells. A recent survey of the US Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine in Bethesda, in Maryland, found that discipline is associated with the appearance of new neurons, as evidenced by the increase in volume of gray matter in some key areas of the brain.
A true panacea
Credits: Instagram @mirandakerr
For this reason, outside the confines of gyms and centres, theo yoga is also increasingly used in “social” contexts such as schools, hospitals, prisons and centers for the elderly where problems and needs of all kinds intersect.
With comforting results.
The Chandra Yoga Itineraries Cultural Association of Padua, for example, for years it has followed the children enrolled in the elementary school of a hinterland municipality and runs courses for the “elderly”.
«The kids already after a couple of lessons start listening, immediately become aware of their emotions and calm down» they underline.
«While those who face difficulties in their movements rediscover the pleasure of challenging themselves even at the age of eighty».
Social yoga in prison
But it is inside the prison that yoga finds its maximum acknowledgment.
According to data from the Ministry of Health the 40 percent of the inmates suffer from psychic disorders, caused by forms of addiction to substances, neurotic and adaptation problems.
Research by Oxford University found that prolonged yoga sessions in prison would help improve the mental health of prisoners leading to a drop in recidivism and aggression.
He knows it well the Devayoga association of Salerno which brought the practice to the women’s wing of the district house of the city prison.
“The inmates couldn’t wait for Thursday to arrive to lie down on the mats and work on themselves,” says project coordinator Walter Dorti.
“In times of difficulty yoga can become a stimulus to increase trust in others”.
Conscious movement with Claudia Buzzetti
In Milan, claudia Buzzetti, Akhanda Yoga teacher (follows the teachings of the Himalayan yogi Yogrishi Vishvketu),si specializes in trauma and somatic therapy with The Embody Lab in New York (Integrative Somatic Trauma Therapy), and now collaborates as a volunteer in the San Vittore district prison in Milan.
She works with young prisoners between the ages of 19 and 25, and the ReYoga brand has specially donated mats to herthe. «For cultural reasons I speak to them more about “conscious movement” than yoga.
They all tell me the same thing. Mounir, a 24-year-old Moroccan boy, told me: “Thank you doctor, I went to another planet”, while Sobhi, a 25-year-old Egyptian with depression problems, added: “For half an hour I thought of nothing.”
I am increasingly convinced that these techniques should be offered free of charge to all people in conditions of trauma and marginality. Yoga means union.”
It already does, for example,the Genoa Solidarity Group: for twelve years he has been proposing the practice as a supportive and inclusive social activism in the squares of the Ligurian capital.
The donations are donated to other associations.
Yoga… while seated
Patrizia Saccà instead invented yoga for disabled people. Ping Pong Champion (he took part in two Paralympics with a bronze in 1992 in Barcelona, in five world championships, 12 European championships, winning 20 Italian titles in all), he lost the use of his legs at the age of thirteen, in 1970.
In 1991 she discovered yoga. Patrizia became a teacher thanks to Csen, National Educational Sports Center, and invented the Surya Namaskara, the seated greeting to the sun, practice he teaches in his book Free Ray Yoga.
A revolution in the world of disability.
“Creating the sequence was a huge amount of work. In the yoga that I teach, through the breath, you can get all the energy and well-being possible even just by moving an arm. Everyone must stay in the body they inhabit. Just the other day a paraplegic student confided in me that, at the check-up, they found him improved».
Patrizia’s strength has become a mission: she has just formed with his method four new specialized teachers. “I understood that if you transform suffering into strength, the quality of life changes”. For everyone’s benefit.
If the Sun Salutation becomes supportive
Yoga appointment in Ogliastra, in Arbatax, from 31 May to 4 June with one of our journalists
For the World Travel Awards, the “tourism oscars”, for four years the Arbatax Park Resort in Sardinia it is considered the “best eco resort in the world”.
This is why iO Donna has chosen this corner of land and sea in Ogliastra to propose a yoga trip dedicated to well-being in the “long weekend” between 31 May and 4 June.
Maria Grazia Ligato, central editor of our newspaper, and teacher Arianna Dadati will do the “honours”.
The program includes morning yoga practices, meditation at sunset, entrances to the spa (for a fee, by reservation) and visits to the most enchanting places in Barbagia.
Including Jeep safari tours, boat excursions to discover the coves of the Ogliastra coast, Cannonau tasting and a visit to Cagliari.
Among the corners to visit in the resort there is certainly Il Giardino delle Meraviglie: it offers a multi-sensory journey that allows guests to immerse themselves in a riot of flowers, trees and shrubs. Information and reservations: email: [email protected]; telephone: 02.30329405 website: doveclub.it
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