Recovery Yoga

Recovery Yoga, Inc. is a federal tax exempt, non-profit service organization dedicated to the healing and personal empowerment of target populations through yoga programs. Recovery Yoga was founded by Elizabeth Johnstone, a registered Baptiste yoga teacher, in 2008.


Brief History

In 2007, Elizabeth began teaching weekly elective yoga classes at the Addiction Services unit in York Correctional Institution for Women, a maximum security prison in Niantic, CT. She witnessed the beneficial effects of yoga on her students first-hand and her classes quickly gained in popularity. The former Assistant Warden, Karen Oien, as well as the Recreational Supervisor Cindy DeSouza, have commended Elizabeth for the successes of the Recovery Yoga programs.

In 2008, Recovery Yoga hired Shaun English, a Registered Yoga Teacher and licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, to teach breathing techniques and weekly yoga classes to teenage girls at York CI. Shaun’s unique background and qualifications were a perfect fit.

Since then, through generous donations, grants, and volunteer efforts, Recovery Yoga has expanded to support many people in need. 8 instructors currently provide 14 yoga and meditation classes at 6 locations throughout CT and RI for Recovery Yoga. These programs target mothers recovering from abuse, children and teens from unsafe environments, incarcerated women, as well as veterans, active duty military members, and their families.

In collaboration with A Sacred Place and The Chrysalis program, Recovery Yoga has annually collected presents and donated money to the children of the women at York CI each Christmas for the past several years.


Recovery Yoga Programs and Stress Reduction

In an article titled Yoga as a Therapeutic Intervention: A Bibliometric Analysis of Published Research Studies, Sat Bir Singh Khalsa asserts that, “Although yoga is historically a spiritual discipline, it has also been used clinically as a therapeutic intervention…a general feature of these [yoga and meditation] practices is their capability of inducing a coordinated psychophysiological response, which is the antithesis of the stress response… [a] ‘relaxation response’” (2004). Accordingly, practicing yoga has been correlated with improvements in cardiovascular, respiratory, and psychopathological health*.

In a study published in Annals of the New York Academy of Science, a group of female patients who completed eight Hatha yoga classes, showed significant improvement in reduction of PTSD symptoms, compared to a similar group that participated only in group therapy. Research shows that yoga causes a decrease in catecholamines—the hormone produced by the adrenal gland in response to stress.

Aetna Insurance Company, in collaboration with Duke Integrative Medicine and American Viniyoga Institute, has delivered a mind-body stress reduction study based on a 12-week yoga and mindfulness program. The program resulted in positive health outcomes.

Recovery Yoga programs increase yoga practitioners’ feelings of self-worth, harmony and empowerment, as well as health and well-being, thus allowing them to become calm, centered and grounded, so they can move forward with hope, strength and a positivity.

*See also Overcoming Trauma through Yoga: Reclaiming Your Body (2011) by David Emerson and Elizabeth Hopper.


Goals and Classes

Goals of Recovery Yoga programs include: (1) offering a physically and emotionally safe place for yoga participants to have a positive experience; (2) enabling participants' stress reduction, self-esteem, and focus to move on to a positive future; (3) inspiring participants to take care of themselves, their families, (if applicable) and their communities; and (4) reducing fear and isolation by offering students a yoga practice within a supportive group.

Recovery Yoga classes typically run for one hour: a 45-minute yoga practice, followed by 15 minutes of yoga nidra, a type of meditation. The classes offer stress relief through a focus on breath, movement, and centering. Classes are accessible to all levels, as to accommodate different stages in life and different physical abilities.

Yoga encourages living in the present moment one breath and one moment at a time. As participants drop limiting beliefs, they can move forward to a new and healthy life with the tools they learn through yoga.