Yoga for Mental Health Certification
Online 40-Hour Certification Program
We provide an online yoga for mental health certification for yoga teachers, health professionals and anyone interested in learning more about connecting how yoga can directly help in the healing process.
Our 10-hour certification program gives instructors tools to integrate specific poses, breathing exercises, techniques and bring a trauma-informed awareness into their classes and sessions to help students and clients with areas of mental health.
Participants have six-months to complete the course work after purchase.
What does the program include?
10-Hour Certification Course: Theory + Practice + Instruction
More details: We offer a specialized online Yoga for Mental Health Certification for yoga instructors who have completed their 200-Hour training and health professionals interested in bringing awareness to mental health in their profession. This is also a great fit for individuals simply interested in expanding their knowledge of how yoga impacts the body and how it helps with trauma and areas of mental health.
Who should apply: This certification course is for participants who have completed their yoga teacher training, those who are currently pursuing their YTT certification, or individuals with a professional degree and wanting to enhance their skills to help clients. This training can be done independent of your 200-Hours YTT or our instructors can join a traditional teacher training to allow participants to specialize in Yoga for Mental Health once they graduate. Contact us for more information.
Not trained in yoga? That's okay! This is the perfect course for you. It discussed basic yoga elements, models and philosophies and relates them to mental health approaches.
Theory
A basic review of the yoga philosophies and elements will be connected to the latest research and areas of mental health.
Teachers and Health Professionals:
Have you wondered how yoga philosophy can be taught in your classroom?
How do the 8 Limbs of Yoga impact individuals with mental health?
How do different breathing exercises help someone with depression or anxiety?
What meditation approaches do we suggest for people needing help with stress management in our classes?
How do we help students understand the Koshas when we teach? How do Koshas relate to mental health?
Practice
Participants will be taken through and/or discuss a variety of different yoga practices to understand how to integrate techniques into their classes as it relates to mental health.
Class styles include:
Yoga Flow
Restorative Yoga/Yin Yoga
Gentle Yoga
Adaptive Yoga
Power Yoga
Sound bath
Meditation
Pranayama
Mindfulness
Participants will learn how to adjust any class to fit all levels.
Instruction
During yoga classes, tips and prompts will be given to participants in bringing awareness to different queues that impact mental health issues in different ways. Teachers need to be aware that certain prompts could trigger different responses from their class members that could decrease or increase symptoms of mental health.
Additional tools will be introduced to help demonstrate the importance of giving class members options and helping their students be mindful throughout their practice. These tools include:
Environment (setting up room to be inclusive and reduce potential triggers)
Props (using props to enhance practice)
Smells (essential oils & aromas)
Sounds (types of music vs silence)
Curriculum Outline
Our certification includes the following classes and focus areas:
Certification Program Curriculum:
Each course includes a discussion on the theory and research, putting the theory into practice by moving through a yoga practice, and adding instruction and cues to demonstrate how teachers can integrate it into their classes.
Yoga Philosophy: Tools to Support Mental Health
8 Limbs of Yoga
4 Noble Truths
Kosha Model
Nervous System & Polyvagal Theory
Ayervedic Yoga & Doshas
A Teacher's Approach: Friend or Foe to Mental Health. Helping others starts with being mindful of ourselves. S.C.A.R.F. Model by David Rock related to Attachment Theory. Understanding our social connectedness that can cause a threat response in the body. Learning your triggers can help you be a better teacher. A study of how different approaches can help or hinder different areas of mental health.
Adaptive Yoga: Key to Mental Health. The importance of helping students be mindful of their needs and demonstrating ways to adapt poses, movements, breath work, and positioning to fit their needs. As teachers and professionals, it's important to provide an environment to allow adjustments and giving cues to encourage mindfulness.
Trauma-Informed Yoga. What are the elements of trauma and how can we as teachers and educators provide tools to help in the healing process. Trauma Healing: "Reflect, Digest, Integrate" by Thomas Huble.
The Breath: A Healing Tool. How does pranayama impact the body, heart and mind? Learning the different breathing exercises and styles that can help with trauma and areas of mental health.
Meditation & Mental Health. Experience a variety of different meditation styles and how they can help lift a person from depression, expand mindfulness, calm the heart and mind, and bring peace to an anxious mind.
Mental Health: Impact on the Body. Our body responds to trauma, depression, anxiety, etc - and understanding the elements of yoga that help specific areas of the body when dealing with mental health. Learning more about Sympathetic (SNS) and Parasympathetic Nervous Systems (PNS) and how they respond to mental health. Identifying poses, breath work, meditation and areas of focus in yoga that helps regulate our SNS and/or PNS.
Practicum Section: All participants will need to read articles and books related to the topics discussed and write a one-page thought paper on what they read. We will provide a resource list. Participants are also required to attend a certain amount of yoga classes outside of the course to observe the different topics we discuss in class.
Certification of Completion
How to use your Certification: All participants receive a certificate of completion they can use in their professional resume. Once you've completed our teacher training program, we will add you to our database, where you have the option to become a trainer in our certification program once you meet the requirements. We will be looking for additional instructors as we expand our program nationwide. You will also be trained in helping provide tools to those dealing with areas of trauma and mental health.
Interested?
Do you teach a 200 or 500 Hour Teacher Training Program?
Contact us to see if you want to include our certification into your program.
Are you yoga certified and want to get your Yoga for Mental Health Certification? Contact us.
Yoga for Mental Health Article
The Journal of Nonprofit Innovation produced a publication on trauma-informed care. One article focuses on Yoga for Mental Health and gives examples of how depression and anxiety can be a tool to help in the healing process. Read here.