At age 50, in March of 2016, Dr. Heidi became a certified Yoga Teacher. In April of 2017, she completed an advanced Yoga Teacher training in Bali and is now a RYT500 level teacher. This means that she has completed over 500 hours of Yoga Alliance approved yoga teacher training.
Why Yoga?
Dr. Heidi felt inspired to become a yoga teacher after reading several research studies demonstrating that yoga can help her clients. She learned that Yoga can help her over weight clients keep lost weight off and improve their body image. She also learned that yoga can help to decrease symptoms of depression and anxiety and improve sleep. In studies done at Harvard by Bessel Van der Kolk and colleagues, yoga was found to help to resolve even symptoms of chronic, treatment resistant PTSD.
By adding Yoga classes as an additional service that her business offered, Dr Heidi had an element to her clinical practice that took Psychology out of the chair and onto the yoga mat and more fully integrated the concept that the mind and body are intrinsically linked and that the health and well-being of one impacts the other. Currently, Dr Heidi has put her Yoga teaching on hold at this time so that she may focus on her own yoga practice.
