Yoga at Clearwater Valley Health

By Sarah McGrath

 

In a spacious and serene setting overlooking the Clearwater River, people are engaging in ancient traditions of yoga to enhance their overall well-being. These time-honored practices of yoga are available through classes offered by Clearwater Valley Health as part of our ongoing commitment to improve our community’s health and quality of life.

 

For more than five thousand years, yoga’s physical movements, meditation, breathwork and relaxation techniques have been embraced by practitioners worldwide as tools which allow a person to thrive in body, mind and heart. In more recent times, these same methods have been studied and validated in their effectiveness to enhance flexibility, balance, strength, stamina, mindfulness, clarity and calmness. In the medical realm, yoga is a complementary therapy for conditions including: hypertension, diabetes, headaches, mood disorders, back pain, cardiovascular disease, inflammation, insomnia, anxiety and depression.

 

The yoga sessions are offered both in-person, at the Clearwater Valley Health Orofino Clinic, and virtually, via Microsoft Teams, most Tuesdays and Thursdays now through May. (Tuesdays from 5:30-6:45 pm and Thursdays from 1:30-2:45 pm). Yoga classes are $5 per class, and are free for all employees of CVH, SMH, Kootenai Health and JSD 171. Private yoga lessons are also available for $25 per session. All the information regarding this class can be found on the website: https://smh-cvh.org/yoga-2/.

 

This yoga class approaches yoga as a comprehensive practice for overall wellness, combining simple movements with conscious breathing, resulting in a moving meditation. The class is safe and appropriate for most people, with modifications always encouraged and available. This is real yoga for real people!

 

A misconception about yoga is that a person needs to be flexible to begin yoga; instead, with practice, everybody becomes more supple, balanced and strong, more mentally and emotionally centered, with spirits lifted. To be clear, yoga is only for feeling good – it can be considered a discipline of pleasure where there is work, but no struggle.

 

Ultimately, yoga offers practitioners ways of living where what is learned on the yoga mat can be applied in the world at large; these insights are profoundly useful in helping people navigate the complexities of human life. Yoga affords people the opportunity to be more physically fit, present, accepting, content, comfortable, conscious, stable, grateful, and graceful. Simply put, practicing yoga is for developing a greater capacity for appreciating life, just as it is.

 

It is my great joy to share yoga, so please feel free to join the class. I’m available if you have any questions – Sarah McGrath  208-827-1800.