Yoga: The Antidote for These Times

• Published date: 01 December 2020
• Author: Maryam Ovissi
• Date: 01 December 2020
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/wmh3.373

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doi: 10.1002/wmh3.373

© 2020 Policy Studies Organization

Yoga: The Antidote for These Times

Yoga is a therapeutic tool that can address secondary trauma, such as that brought on by our collective

experience with COVID‐19. There are things that we can do now to help mitigate the current spate of

dysregulation associated with the pandemic. Supporting mental health well‐being is essential during

this time. As we are now in the midst of collective trauma, it seems appropriate to bring yoga back to

help us deal with what is called secondary traumatic stress. Yoga‐inspired tools can support you in

your journey through COVID‐19 and also help you to navigate re‐entry into your life as we begin to

emerge from the pandemic.

KEY WORDS: yoga, secondary traumatic stress, trauma‐informed yoga

Yoga is a therapeutic tool that can address secondary trauma, such as that

brought on by our collective experience with COVID‐19. In a previous issue of

World Medical & Health Policy,Ico‐authored an article entitled Trauma‐Informed

Educational Yoga Program for Teens as an Addiction Prevention Tool (Ovissi &

Hagaman, 2020, p. 71)in which I noted that “dysregulated trauma can propel

people to abuse alcohol or drugs as medicine to feel balanced.”We have already

seen that once pandemic stay‐at‐home orders began to be implemented within the

United States, alcohol sales went up by 55 percent, according to the market research

firm Nielsen (Bremner, 2020). There has also been a global rise in domestic violence

(Taub, 2020).

There are things that we can do now to help mitigate the current spate of

dysregulation associated with the pandemic. Supporting mental health well‐being

is essential during this time. As we are now in the midst of collective trauma, it

seems appropriate to bring yoga back to help us deal with what is called secondary

traumatic stress (STS)(Figley, 1995). STS was first used to describe stress symptoms

that were showing up for first responders, social workers working with extremely

abusive populations and bystanders of crime. The symptoms of trauma can show

up in people who are not directly experiencing trauma but are indirectly exposed to

it. The term STS, which was first coined by Charles Figley and Beth Stamm in the

1990s, can be used interchangeably with the term “Vicarious Traumatization”

(Baird & Jenkins, 2003).

A virus has hijacked our planet. COVID‐19 has shut down countries, govern-

ments, businesses, and schools. No one has been exempt from this pandemic. The

macroconditions of widespread uncertainty are reflected in the microconditions of

our internal turmoil and panic, and vice versa.