Iyengar on Depression
In a nearly three-hour Q & A to end the Iyengar Intensive, BKS Iyengar addressed a number of therapuetic subjects. He demonstrated how he worked with a woman who had hip replacement surgery, a man who had a cancerous kidney removed as well as people with anxiety and depression.
His thoughts on depression were particularly interesting to me in part because my teacher Patricia Walden struggled with the disease as a young woman and credits BKS Iyengar with saving her life. Patricia has made the subject a major focus of her work and she and I have taught yoga for depression workshops at a number of Yoga Journal workshops in the past several years. Even so, in just a few minutes today, I learned a lot.
Iyengar links depression with Pantanjali's description of dukha (suffering). The physical signs Pantanjali describes include shakiness in the body and labored breathing. Rather than address the erratic breathing directly, as is sometimes recommended, Iyengar attempts to put the students in supported poses which naturally cause the breath to settle down. When you develop stability in the body, Iyengar says, the breath and the mind become stable and dukha becomes sukha (happiness).
Improvising props by using the edge of the stage he appeared on and the steps leading up to it, Iyengar placed a student in supported versions of Purvotannasana, Viparita Dandansana (with the head supported on a yoga block) and Setu Bandha Sarvangasana. These poses tended to open the area around the sternum which Iyengar finds helpful for depression. While a depressed student might only be able to stay in an unsupported Setu Bandha (bridge pose) for 30 seconds, Iyengar joked, you could fall asleep in the supported version.
He also showed how more active poses like full arm balance and forearm balance could be useful if the students learn to relax the outer portion of the eyes. Iyengar has often noted tightness in this region in people who are depressed. While the student did the pose, the master exhorted, "Move the edge of the eyes toward the temple and ears."
