Yoga-informed exercise for mental health. Presented by Dr Jacinta Brinsley AEP
Principles and practice tools to enhance the impact of your prescription
These ideas are universal. Whether or not you work in the mental health space, or have a particular interest in yoga, this professional development integrates a handful of important concepts that will be relevant to your practice.
Establishing the definitions of stress, mental health and mental illness, Dr Jacinta Brinsley helps us to recognise how they relate to, and how they are distinctly independent of, each other. And also, how they might be expressed by our clients as they present in session. We might notice their energy level, eye contact and breath rate.
Shifting into exercise prescription, we’re updated with the evidence for using exercise as a treatment tool for physical and mental health during mental illness. *Spoiler alert* In recent years, the evidence has emerged, strong and supportive of using mainstream forms of exercise.
And what of other sub-groups of movement, including yoga? Jacinta’s 2020 systematic review and meta-analysis concluded that yoga has a positive impact on depressive symptoms in people with mental illness.
So, how can we make use of the evidence-based principles that are foundational in yoga, to inform and add rich layers of value to our exercise prescription? Leave with a collection of concepts grounded in movement and breath that you can make your own, adapt to your need, and enhance the impact of your prescription practice.
Dr Jacinta Brinsley aims to prescribe movement that achieves meaningful changes in mood, mental health, quality of life and functional capacity. She has a degree in Clinical Exercise Physiology, with honours in Biomechanics. Following first-hand experience of the benefits integrated mind-body movement, she also became a registered yoga teacher. As an AEP her experience has been across a variety of settings, including private practice, community mental health and hospital inpatient. Jacinta’s PhD explored the effects of modern yoga practices on mental health in people with mental illness.