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Rhythm is Healing

Welcome to Rhythm Yoga Therapy's first blogpost! To kick things off, let's start with our name, Rhythm Yoga Therapy (RYT). Where did it come from?


Our approach to yoga therapy is designed with trauma in mind. Trauma breaks the natural rhythm of our lives. Yoga therapy through evidence-informed approaches like RYT can help restore it.


Rhythm plays an essential role in human experience. In vitro, we are rocked by the rhythm of our mother's movements, and we feel the rhythm of her heartbeat. As soon as we're born, our lives depend on the rhythm of feeding, sleeping and even diaper changes. Later, we rely on the routine of a school schedule, playtime, mealtime and bedtime to teach us how to do this thing called life. Even as adults, the regular routine of work, family and social life makes life predictable, calm and enjoyable.


Key to the healthy life rhythms is human connection. Through regular, nurturing interactions with our caregivers we not only learn how to relate with others, we also learn who we are, according to pioneering psychologists like Piaget and Vygotsky. In this way, the rhythms of our social connections define how we see and relate with our world and ourselves.


Bessel van der Kolk says that trauma breaks these natural rhythms (personal communication, April 3, 2020). I first heard van der Kolk share this during a webinar he held for therapists during the height of the pandemic. Humans usually congregate together during times of crisis, and he said that the necessary mandate to quarantine and isolate presented a break in the collective rhythm to gather. On an individual level, this isolation broke adults' work routines and children's school routines. For children and adolescents, this was particularly detrimental since their developing brains need social connection to grow and flourish.


This may be surprising: Many of us picture blatant physical abuse when we think of trauma. But the roots of trauma can hide in plain sight. Systemic racism, bullying--both on the playground and in cyberspace, verbal abuse through gaslighting and passive aggressive communication, and childhood neglect all interrupt the healthy flow of life and threaten one's sense of safety and belonging in the world. These chronic and longstanding stressors can easily lead to trauma. (To learn more about different types of trauma, read our book Yoga Therapy for Complex Trauma: Working with Child, Adolescent and Adult Clients, to be released by Singing Dragon August 2025.)


Leslie Korn, a clinician specializing in integrative mental health, nutrition and traumatic stress, says that trauma's disruptive impact on human rhythms has been "well established by conventional medicine" for quite some time (2015, ). "Traumatic experiences, the unexpected catastrophes of life, affect the functioning of the whole being physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually" (Korn, 2015, ).


Here's a brief summary of factors that can increase the likelihood of trauma:

  1. Age

First, the younger a child or person is, the more readily traumatized they are by less severe events (Courtois and Ford, 2016). For instance, a baby who doesn't receive timely diaper changes or regular interactions with a caring adult is at risk. This may have nothing to do with the caregiver's love for their child, but instead be due to socioeconomic factors that require the caregiver to work too much, or due to the family living in a war zone, where the adults are more focused on survival than playtime.


  1. Stress-Trauma Continuum

Second, not everyone is traumatized by the same events: What traumatizes me may differ than what traumatizes you (van der Kolk, 2021). Rather than focusing on the adverse event or stressor itself, clinical psychologist and trauma expert Dr. Rony Berger focuses on different levels of stress leading to trauma. In his chart Progression of Stress Symptomatology (2023, 16:34 –19:40), he demonstrates a continuum of stress levels that lead to trauma. In the mildest form on the continuum, Berger says that 70 - 85% of individuals who experience a single traumatic events will show signs and symptoms of Acute Stress Reactions (ASR) for anywhere from hours to days afterwards. At the most acute level, Bergers says that individuals exhibit what he calls Chronic PTSD for months or years after the event. More detailed discussion of Berger's work can be found in our book, Yoga Therapy for Complex Trauma: Working with Child, Adolescent and Adults Clients (Singing Dragon, to be released August 21, 2025).


  1. Human Connection

And lastly, when it comes to trauma, human connection makes a difference. Bessel van der Kolk says, "life sucks a good amount of the time" (2021, Big Think, 0:09 - 0:11). We humans can and do put up with a lot. And in most cases, we're able to tolerate stress even when it's high. Most stressors are a drag while they're happening, but then they're over. That is, as long as we feel connected to others.


If your car breaks down on the way to an important work meeting right after you dropped your toddler off at daycare crying and upset, you may have a hard day. But if you can talk it out with an understanding friend or partner later that night, you'll probably feel much better. If your unhappy toddler stubs her toe right after you drop her off, but then is reassured by her favorite daycare staff, she too may forget about the whole thing.


In the above scenario, if you don't have anyone to tell your tale of woe to you may start the next day off on the wrong foot. And if your toddler's favorite staff is off the day she stubs her toe, she may not get the nurturing she needs and show some resistance to going back. When these kinds of incidents are the exception and not the rule, most of us recover our rhythm and carry on. But when on a regular basis we don't receive the human support we need at times of stress, and the stressors become the rule and not the exception, we suffer.


Stress morphs into trauma when either a one-time event is intense and perceived as life-threatening (such as a natural disaster, bombing or an interpersonal aggression or betrayal) and/or the stressor(s) are chronic, pervasive, acute and longstanding (such as systemic racism, bullying, or child abuse and neglect). These kinds of adverse events can cause a rupture in our sense of order and rhythm in life, and lead to trauma or complex trauma.


Yoga helps restore healthy rhythm in multiple ways. On a physical we learn to coordinate our movement with our breath (vinyasa through ujjayi pranayama). This is highly regulating for the nervous system (Bordoni et al., 2018). The postures of yoga (asanas) also help us regulate emotions and tolerate distress (Yoga Will Heal, 2022). The regularity of our practice, whether that's at home or in a studio, also leads to routine, another form of life rhythm. And interactions with a competent, consistent yoga teacher create a healing container. Yoga on its own can and does help many people find ways to calm and regulate the nervous--including yours truly. It's as convenient as scrolling on your phone to find an app or in-person class.


Yoga therapy takes it one step further by offering care tailored to an individual's needs and preferences. At RYT, we teach yoga and mental health professionals an effective yoga therapy option for people of all ages. We recognize that what a child needs after a traumatizing event can be different than what either a teen or adult may need. But for the sake of this blog, let's take a look at a symptom that many people regardless of age struggle with after a trauma: difficulty moving through the transitions and routine of every day life.


Transitions in particular can be tricky. An 8 year old child may struggle with the morning routine of getting ready for school, and then again struggle at night with the bedtime transition. Both children and teens may complain of stomach aches and nausea (and may even get sick) before school. Many of my teen clients have told me of intense anxiety from the time they wake up right up until the moment they're sitting in their seat. I've often heard some version of the following sentiment: "As soon as I'm sitting in my seat in class I'm fine. But before that I felt like I'm going to die." Day after day after day. For adults, their difficulty with transition after a traumatizing event may vary greatly depending on their life circumstances.


One needn't have trauma to struggle with transition. Most parents can attest to their children's resistance to schedules and routine. And if a child or teen has anxiety or depression (with no traumatic origin), this resistance is usually even higher. As an adult, I myself have a love/hate relationship with the snooze button. But when one has endured trauma, almost certainly transitions will pose a challenge. Lately I've found myself making a comparison of the chaos of trauma to noise, and the healthy rhythms of life to music. The only difference between noise and music is the pauses between notes that create rhythm, and therefore music.


In yoga and yoga therapy, we also create rhythm through pauses. Many of us pause and quiet down as we first walk into a yoga studio or space. The yoga teacher or therapist may ring a bell to signal to our nervous system that we're transitioning to practice. We take deeper breaths, we slow our movements down with intention and care, and we take a long pause at the end of the yoga session in savasana.


Below you'll find links to two simple, easy yoga tools that can help you pause and regroup in moments of transition rather than procrastinate or panic (no yoga mat or spandex required!). If you, your teen or your child are currently struggling with transition, these are great tools to practice right before it's time to put on the shoes, grab the car keys, start homework or get ready for bed.


We hope you find these tools supportive, and make your transitions smoother and more easeful. Check back to our blog monthly for helpful tips just like these. And don't forget to tell us how they worked for you and how you use them!

 

Yoga Tools : Follow the two links below for quick, effective ways to manage the stress of transitions


References

Berger, R. (2023, November 11). Surviving at the heart of the storm [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8LPADjIr3s


Bordoni B, Purgol S, Bizzarri A, Modica M, Morabito B. The Influence of Breathing on the Central Nervous System. Cureus. 2018 Jun 1;10(6):e2724. doi: 10.7759/cureus.2724. PMID: 30083485; PMCID: PMC6070065. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6070065/


Courtois, C. & Ford, J. (2016). Treatment of complex trauma: A sequenced, relationship-based approach. The Guilford Press.



van der Kolk, B. (2021). What is trauma? The author of the "The Body Keeps the Score" explains. https://youtu.be/BJfmfkDQb14


Yoga Will Heal. (2022, December 5). How yoga helps trauma, Dr. Bessel van der Kolk. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TAGzGXBYBsI



 
 
 

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