A quiet revolution has been taking place in New Hampshire over the last decade.
A growing number of people are looking beyond conventional medicine to treat stress and fatigue.
And many are turning to the ancient art of yoga.
New Hampshire Public Radio correspondent Avishay Artsy has more.
INTRO ROOM CHATTER
In a large naturally-lit room at the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in Nashua, about a dozen elderly women are preparing for their weekly one hour yoga class.
“We begin by lying down, and we begin with the chimes. [sound]”
UNDERNEATH – CLASS INSTRUCTIONS
Valerie Forde-Galvin has been leading yoga classes for the past 14 years.
She leads the class through a series of stretches and postures, repeatedly asking the women to observe how parts of their bodies feel in certain positions.
T14 “By being more aware of your body, then you begin to trust your body. When you trust your body you start to realize the body has natural healing.”
The women in the class seem to agree.
“My name is Joanne, and I have rheumatoid arthritis, and I find that since I’ve been going to yoga it’s helped me a lot with the pain, and it keeps my joints moving.”
(different woman)
T12, 0:06 “Having breast cancer, you need to have a good mental outlook, and yoga is stress-free – we try to be stress free – (laughter) and not think about all the external things.”
While people at this clinic are often referred to yoga classes by physicians, two of the breast cancer survivors in the class never bothered to tell their doctors.
T12, 1:12 “Doctors deal with medicine, and I don’t think they consider yoga medicine.”
“I don’t think they do either, but I think it’s very beneficial – for mind and body.”
Yoga has seen a tremendous explosion in New Hampshire.
One Yoga Institute in Western Massachusetts reports that the number of people it has trained from New Hampshire has increased 20% since 2001.
When instructor Matt Taylor moved to Weare in 1998, he says there weren’t any resources for yoga instructors.
So he created an online directory and email list for instructors he could find.
T17, 6:40 “The yoga list that I started, when I first started it in 1998, I probably had about 30 teachers on it. By the time I stopped doing it in, I think it was 2003, I think I probably had about 150 or 200, so that’s quite a big multiple.”
Taylor says that while yoga has taken off in the state, it’s not always taking place in yoga centers.
It's taught in fitness clubs, retirement homes, schools and offices.
And yoga has also gradually become a common feature of patient treatment in hospitals.
Carol McIntyre is the family education coordinator at Southern New Hampshire Medical Center.
She teaches a class called Comfort Strategies for expecting mothers.
McIntyre wants people to think of yoga and massage as part of a natural response to pain and stress.
T2, 3:30 “In a lot of other cultures these are not unusual at all. You might see a mother from India massaging her newborn baby, because that’s what her mother did. That’s not at all unusual to them; they wouldn’t consider that alternative by any means.”
To help people get past that label "alternative" instructors now like to use terms like “integrative” or “complementary” care.
Practitioners say those terms help convince patients that these techniques can go hand-in-hand with conventional medical treatment.
Lisa Gold has the title of Complementary care coordinator at The Concord Hospital Payson Center for Cancer Care.
Five years ago she introduced methods like meditation and yoga at the Hospital.
She says some Doctors resisted because they wanted to see hard evidence of its usefulness.
T22, 6:20 “There’s not that concrete data that doctors really like.”
But she says, research has shown how yoga and meditation can reduce stress and pain for cancer patients.
And more and more Doctors have begun referring patients to Gold's classes.
She says at least half of the cancer patients at Concord Hospital seek out complementary care.
She says even people who come in to the Hospitals community wellness program are looking to yoga as a respite from increasingly hectic lifestyles.
T22, 11:05 “I think one of the biggest things that’s happening in this society is, we are a very busy society, and people are crazed. They have cell phones, they have computers, we’re emailing, we’re not talking to anyone, and I think people are more stressed now than ever, and people are seeking out anything that’s gonna relax ‘em.”
It’s clear that life in America has become more fast-paced in the past decade.
And an ancient Eastern philosophy like yoga might not have much appeal to New Hampshire natives.
But Doris Grillo, co-owner of Hollis Yoga, believes yoga fits quite naturally in the Granite state.
T20, 0:30 “I think NH prides itself in being a culture that relates more directly to the land. People are drawn to NH because of that, and as you go further up into the state you see more and more people, you know, growing their own vegetables and taking pride and concern and effort into what they’re putting into their bodies and maintaining their health. That’s the essence of what yoga is; it’s maintaining optimal wellness.”
Now, no one is expecting to see rugged North Country farmers take up the downward facing dog position anytime soon.
But as the daily stresses of modern life creep in, practitioners do believe we'll see more Granite staters taking a few minutes to breathe.
For NHPR News, this is Avishay Artsy.
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