This book is a user-friendly guide to learning about trauma sensitive yoga, who needs it, and how to implement the practice. This book provides easy to understand, applicable, and valuable information for many populations so anyone can embrace the gift of yoga. As our world grows smaller through technology, we can grow more distant and alone. Tragedy seems to present itself as pervasive and overwhelming, however armed with the many tools of yoga, we discover resiliency and hope.
Trauma is an emotional response to an event like an accident, rape, or natural disaster. Trauma is a subjective experience and represents a threat to personal safety physically, emotionally, or mentally. Trauma activates our sympathetic nervous system (SNS), which is necessary and important as a survival response. Trauma becomes a problem when it is chronic or so severe in perception that the SNS is never turned back off. When the sympathetic nervous system is continually activated, it rewires the nervous system and physical changes take place in the brain and the endocrine system that make healing more challenging. Chronic activation can turn into Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), a condition that can cause serious physical and mental illness. Whether or not a trauma becomes a chronic stress seems to be related to the intensity and severity of the incident and also to past trauma exposure. This book will explore these changes and just how trauma gets stored in the body as well as offer a trauma sensitive format of YOGAFIT as a body based program for healing.
Beth Shaw is the president and founder of YogaFit Training Systems. The leader in mind-body education, YogaFit has trained more than 200,000 fitness instructors on six continents.
After graduating with a B.S. in Marketing from Long Island University, Shaw headed west and began seriously studying yoga and earning certifications in fitness, Hatha yoga, and yoga therapy. In 1993, she began teaching yoga and quickly discovered that traditional methods didn't meet the needs of the fitness club clientele. YogaFit(R) was born.
Now Shaw is an internationally known fitness expert and the author of Beth Shaw's YogaFit and the publisher of Angles magazine, which is distributed to yoga fitness enthusiasts and instructors. Shaw and her company have been showcased in numerous fitness magazines as well as Oprah's O magazine, Time, More, Entrepreneur, Yoga Journal, Glamour, Self and USA Today. She has also been featured on CNBC, CNN, NBC, CBS, E Style, Channel, Showtime, and Donny Deutsch's Big Idea.
Ms. Shaw is the innovative educator, entrepreneur, and visionary responsible for YogaFit as well as YogaButt, YogaStrength, YogaCore, YogaLean, and countless other yoga fitness combinations. She has more than 30 DVD's and CD's on the market and is widely recognized as the premier yoga fitness trainer in the industry.
She is also known for her community service initiatives. As an animal rights activist, Shaw serves on the National Council for the Humane Society and is involved in Animal Alliance, Downtown Dog Rescue and supports Spay/Neuter initiatives. Her nonprofit organization, Visionary Women in Fitness, awards scholarships and grants women in need. She is responsible for over one million hours of Community Service given by over 50,000 Instructors worldwide. She lives in Beverly Hills, California.
