Veterans Yoga Project

VYP programs decrease barriers to accessing physical and mental healthcare, providing a non-clinical doorway into veterans health services. VYP programs increase accessibility to programming that fosters a healthy lifestyle, directly with yoga and meditation for veterans, and indirectly by providing training to veteran service providers and caregivers. VYP Mindful Resilience for Trauma Recovery Yoga Teacher Training and Mindful Resilience for Trauma Recovery Training programs provide veterans the skills, abilities, and opportunities to thrive after service. VYP programs also address the mental health and social isolation difficulties identified as being significant concerns in the veterans community due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

1. VYP provides a 200-hour MRYTT course for veterans and those who serve or are willing to serve veterans. Upon completion, participants are eligible to register with Yoga Alliance as an RYT-200 yoga teacher, become part of the VYP Teachers Alliance support program, and may pursue employment as a yoga teacher inside and outside the VA System.
2. VYP offers opportunities for yoga teachers, as well as mental health clinicians, VA and Vet Center employees, to receive trauma-informed care training via the MRT. This 20-hour course provides education, training and practice to bridge the civilian/military divide and present trauma-informed Mindful Resilience tools for veteran yoga students. Yoga teachers completing an MRT are asked to perform volunteer work delivering yoga programs to the veteran community. Outputs from this initiative include veterans or veteran caregivers/service providers with a basic knowledge of trauma-informed care and how to use it to share yoga and meditation practices.
3. VYP offers advanced training for veteran or veteran caregivers who have completed MRT or MRYTT to become MRT or MRYTT facilitators.
4. VYP provides hundreds of hours of yoga classes each week, online and in person as public health conditions allow, at no cost to veterans, veteran household members and caregivers.

Dr. Daniel J. Libby, while working as a Postdoctoral Fellow with the Yale University Department of Psychiatry at the West Haven VA Medical Center, found that veterans recovering from PTS(D) who practiced yoga and meditation had better outcomes. He developed a training workshop to assist other yoga teachers develop the skills and knowledge to effectively use yoga as a complementary part of PTS(D) treatment. This 18-hour Mindful Resilience for Trauma Recovery (MRT) training has been delivered to almost 2000 yoga teachers, veteran healthcare and service providers. VYP offered its first 200-hour MRY Teacher Training course in 2019 graduating 16 of 20 veterans; ten currently teach yoga to veterans. Several volunteer with VYP, and one joined the staff managing online yoga programs. With lessons learned from that cohort VYP expects a higher completion rate. VYP Director of Training Programs, Alexandra Cordle, developed and implemented a comprehensive faculty training program for Mindful Resilience for Compassion Fatigue (MRCF) facilitators. VYP is an International Association of Yoga Therapy member school and a certified Yoga Alliance school. In 2022, VYP documented 24,000+ visits to 4000+ classes and trained 200+ yoga teachers and providers in trauma-informed care.

In 2022, VYP continued to offer online streaming Mindful Resilience for Trauma Recovery Yoga classes to lessen geography as a barrier to participation. VYP offered online cohorts of Mindful Resilience for Compassion Fatigue and hybrid Mindful Resilience for Trauma Recovery Training to yoga teachers and mental health practitioners. More than 177,000 online streaming views were documented in 2020 along with more than 10,000 in-person encounters. In 2021, VYP documented 17,000+ visits to 4000+ classes, trained 250+ yoga teachers and providers in trauma-informed care, trained 99 veteran caregivers in managing compassion fatigue, and certified 6 MRCF faculty. In general, more than 60% self-identify as men. More than 70% self-reported a reduction in physical pain, and nearly 90% noted a significant reduction in mental distress following class participation. VYP continued to grow and expand its reach during 2021, and VYP is looking forward to a very busy 2022 delivering yoga to veterans and preparing teachers and mental health professional to work with veterans, active military, military families, caregivers and others living with past trauma, vicarious trauma, and mental distress.