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Living Well Institute

Integrative Lifestyle Medicine

PYTI® On-Site Modules

Yoga as Lifestyle Medicine Certification
While biomedical care saves lives with its demonstrated excellence in acute, crisis-based disease intervention (Garner 2016), it has a less success with chronic disease prevention and management (Pomeroy 2012, Van Hecke et al., 2013, Elliott et al., 2002). However yoga, the perfect adjunct to clinical rehabilitation disciplines, has long term healthcare benefits not matched by the sole reliance upon biomedical care. Simply put, yoga’s use as Lifestyle Medicine can improve rehabilitation, including its preventive, acute, and chronic care aspects, while also fostering creative, innovative dialogue that can transform healthcare, now and for the future. Further, the critical aspects of Lifestyle Medicine that the licensed healthcare provider can include offers best care evidence-based options for our patients and for our communities.

The Yoga as Lifestyle Medicine Certification and the foundations of Lifestyle Medicine taught in the PYTI® certification prepare the licensed healthcare provider to:

  • Help determine the root cause of the individual’s condition through evaluation, diagnosis where appropriate, and treatment that is encased in a biopsychosocial model of assessment. Taking a thorough subjective intake, listening to the person and validating their experience and needs, and using the Functional Movement Assessment© enables the clinician to personalize a treatment plan.
  • Affect behavioral health and lifestyle choices. Lifestyle choices contribute to the high cost and frequency of chronic illness that plagues our society today and which stems from complex, difficult to treat disease processes. Often the orthopedic conditions we see, for example, can be linked with lifestyle choices, inflammation, obesity, and stress. And the effects do not stop there. An orthopedic condition, such as low back pain, doesn’t typically occur as a single, isolated condition. There are often multiple affected body systems driving the back pain, such as gastrointestinal function, gut microbiome, and neuroendocrine health, for starters. The back pain eventually takes a toll on these systems, which inevitably impairs social, relational, and spiritual health. Or, the situation can work in reverse and what begins as a relational or emotional issue can manifest as physical pain. Functional medicine works to identify root causes of illness and impairment instead of treating a single diagnosis. Diet, nutrition, lifestyle changes, and movement/fitness can all be a part of intervention.
  • Use best-fit Integrative Medicine approaches that are evidence-based, scientifically sound in a compassionate, inclusive environment driven by person-centered care.
  • Use the model of Lifestyle Medicine to deliver care.