Yoga for Eating Disorder Recovery

Therapeutic Yoga Group Program The group will include ED consumer and carer pairs. This group will be held at Deakin University Waterfront gym. Up to 16 participants (8 consumers and 8 carers) Before the group starts all ED consumer participants will be scheduled to meet with the Yoga Therapist, for a one-on-one one-hour consultation to complete screening and orientation and will discuss: - Participant’s interest in trying a personal yoga practice, expectations, goals and suitability for the program - The time of day they will practice, needs of their body and respiratory health (through observation, discussion and pulse reading) - Past history of illness, current illness and medications. - Weekly practice log and adverse event monitoring. This session will be used to gather preliminary data and ensure that the yoga practice offered in group sessions is safe and suitable for each individual. Participants will be provided with a yoga mat and attend 8 weekly group yoga sessions of 60 minutes each run by the yoga therapist. In addition to this, a mental health clinician will be present at each of the sessions to provide support as required. As the intervention is primarily aimed at supporting consumers through ED recovery, carer participants will attend the group sessions but will not be provided with a personalised home practice. The goal of each group yoga practice is to give participants an experience of yoga as a discipline that can bring greater mindfulness to all that they do – breath, movement, attitude and relationship with self and others – ultimately providing an experience of creating space to observe the patterns of the mind without judgment. The classes will be held in a community space close to Barwon Health Eating Disorder Services and will involve the following components: - Gentle asana (postures) tailored to the capacity and needs of the group. Postures may be standing, lying or sitting. - Breath awareness and implementation of pranayama techniques. - Relaxation with a movement towards meditative focus. The goal at the end of each class will be to give participants a deep experience of relaxation and a direction towards focusing the mind. Individualised yoga home practice Participants will be encouraged to complete 15-30 minutes of home practice each day (at least three days per week) based on a personalised practice devised by the Yoga Therapist. The practice will involve simple movement and breathing techniques, with the aim of setting a new positive pattern for the participant and to create a commitment to doing something positive for body and mind and be suitable for clients engaging in ED treatment. In the initial session, the yoga therapist will offer a home practice and go through this with participants. They will also explain the benefits of engaging in a home practice and how a weekly practice log can be used to support engagement. Researchers will send participants an electronic weekly practice log which ask participants to document their practice. Firstly, it asks participants to reflect on why they chose to engage with the adjunctive therapeutic yoga program to gather information about acceptability. Using the electronic weekly yoga log, each week participants are asked to reflect on their practice over the previous week and quantify approximately how many days they completed their practice (including if they attended the group session), how long in duration the practice was, and how close the actual practice was to the individualised protocol that was developed for them.