Yoga for Bipolar Disorder

I’ve made the decision not to withhold information for profit.

That seems to be the health paradigm we’re working in these days — one person is sick and needs access to information or care. Another party has this information or service but withholds it unless a transaction is made.

Our lack of a national health plan speaks volumes of this, but lately yoga teachers have caught on, too, and I have certainly been guilty of charging prices just within the top limits of “reasonable” just because I know people are desperate enough to pay.

This isn’t the yogic path. In the old days, yogis lived on alms or had wealthy patrons who kept them in clothes and food so they could practice and teach the public.

I think many more yoga teachers would teach by donation if there wasn’t the fear that their own needs wouldn’t be taken care of.

So I’m breathing through some fear to state that I’m going to share all that I know about yoga and bipolar disorder here on this blog (in the big picture, that’s not much, anyway), free to the public.

(If I do ever offer a product, it will simply be a synthesis or reorganization of the information you find here, or in the case of video, a longer work of higher visual quality.)

To pull this off, I need your help. So if you find this resource useful, please make a donation if you can. Donations can also keep the site free of Google ads — I’d rather not have pharmaceuticals or crappy ebooks advertised here.

The PayPal donation button is in the sidebar. Thank you!

So from time to time I practice mudras (hand gestures) to stimulate mood or get more grounded. This is more on the far-out esoteric end of yoga, and no doubt some will scoff. That’s fine.

If you are even slightly sensitive to subtle shifts of energy, you will notice a difference to a small or great degree while practicing mudras.

I had forgotten some of the names of what it was I had been practicing (intended to write about this ages ago), but recently stumbled upon an article with a great many mudras accompanied by photos.

The mudras I recommend for bipolar depression are abhaya mudra (my favorite), gyan and purn gyan mudras, prithvi mudra, and pran mudra.

For more groundedness during manic, hypomanic or mixed states, practice prithvi mudra, kalesvara mudra, or gyan mudra. (Actually, if you’re manic, go to the hospital first.)

There are many, many mudras, each providing a subtle shift in your energy body. Try them out for yourself.

Now that this project is rolling again, look forward to some mudra how-to videos.

At the moment, the “blogroll” in the right column is pathetic — it’s the list that comes with the WordPress installation.

The truth is, I don’t really read bipolar blogs, though no doubt there must be some good ones out there considering the creativity we are capable of.

What bipolar blogs do you recommend I read? I’ll use your recommendations to determine the best bipolar blogs for my blogroll.

Please respond in the comments.

A study published in May of this year documented how yoga can have a positive influence on a brain chemical that affects mood¹.

In the study, several subjects did yoga for an hour while another group read. At the end of the hour, measurements were taken of GABA (gamma amino butyric acid) levels in the participants’ brains. The yoga group experienced a 27% increase in GABA, while the readers had no change. Read the rest of this entry »

1. Chris C. Streeter, J. Eric Jensen, Ruth M. Perlmutter, Howard J. Cabral, Hua Tian, Devin B. Terhune, Domenic A. Ciraulo, Perry F. Renshaw. The Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine. 2007, 13(4): 419-426. doi:10.1089/acm.2007.6338. [↩]

As soon as you can make your own suffering mean something, you start to transcend it and serve a higher purpose.

Everyone has their own suffering, whether they are bipolar or not. The challenge is to embrace your darkness as much as the light so you can hold it, have compassion for it, and see the beauty in it. Your bipolar disorder can serve a spiritual purpose. Read the rest of this entry »

A complaint I hear a lot is that people feel too depressed to exercise, even though they know it’d help relieve some of the symptoms of bipolar depression.

I know those awful feelings of depression all too well, so I can totally sympathize. I’m not about to beat you up with one of those “make yourself do it” speeches. We all know it’s not about willpower. (You know that, right?) Read the rest of this entry »

A quick jaunt around the Internet would lead you to believe that the only treatment options for people still in the “suffering” stage of bipolar disorder are meds, meds, more meds, talk therapy, electo-shock therapy, and still more medications.

Now here’s something interesting — take a look at who advertises on these sites . Sure, there are the Google ads on some of the sites, which most site owners don’t know they can control the content of. But look at the non-Google ads, and you’ll see a trend: the advertisers are major pharmaceutical corporations. Read the rest of this entry »

One group of yoga postures is particularly helpful in managing bipolar mood swings.

They are useful not only for their potency, but also for their ease: You can easily do them even if you are not flexible, strong, or if you can’t get up and down. Read the rest of this entry »

Welcome to the Yoga for Bipolar blog. Here I’ll update you on developments in the forthcoming releases of the Yoga for Bipolar audios and workbook, as well as keep you apprised of new research findings and more.

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