Benefits of Dru Yoga and Meditation
Dru Yoga and Meditation offers a variety of benefits to your body, mind and emotions. It can help reduce physical tension in the body, increase positive thinking and transform your life in a way that ripples out to benefit all of those around you.
Here are just a few more things that Dru can do for you:
- reduce stress and tension
- ease back pain, headaches and other physical discomfort
- transform painful emotions into positive and have a better mood
- ease negative thinking
- resolve conflicts more successfully so you can have better relationships
- improve feelings about yourself and others
- boost your energy and vitality
- positively transform your life and as it does, the positive effects ripple out to those about you and even to your community too
If this sounds good, read on!
THERESA DONOHUE
Dru yoga teacher
On the verge of making a major transition in my and my husband's lives, we found the techniques I've learnt on the Dru Yoga teacher training course to be fantastically helpful for managing stress and remaining centred.
What's the evidence?
- Latest news:
Dru Yoga helps Liverpool soccer players reduce injuries
Dru Yoga is shown to reduce stress and pain at work - Randomised controlled university trial - the benefits of Dru Yoga
- Dru Yoga Survey results
- Benefits of meditation
- Yoga testimonials
- Meditation testimonials
Dru Yoga helps Liverpool soccer players reduce injuries
In an article published in January 2013 in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, Dru Yoga is quoted as being part of a successful 7 point plan, used by physiotherapists on Liverpool Football (soccer) Club’s players to reduce hamstring injuries.
Recurrent hamstring injuries are a major problem in sports such as soccer. The research followed a professional soccer player who had sustained five hamstring injuries. Liverpool’s doctors and physiotherapists successfully used a seven point programe which included Dru Yoga. The player started regular sessions of yoga-based stretching and relaxation with a qualified Dru yoga instructor. These consisted of Dru fascial warm-up techniques; intense hamstring and low back stretches; guided Dru relaxations and Dru breath training (techniques to improve lung capacity, stamina and to activate the relaxation response through the body). Sessions were undertaken for 60 min twice per week. The player soon reported subjective improvement in his hamstring freedom.
Dru Yoga is shown to reduce stress and back pain at work
Results from 2012 research into the effects of Dru Yoga
New UK research, published in September 2012 in the Journal of Occupational Medicine, shows that Dru Yoga can reduce perceived stress and back pain at work.
Stress and back pain are two key factors leading to sickness absence at work, costing the British economy an estimated £17 billion per year. This study by researchers at Bangor University suggests to employers that wellbeing programs that include yoga can have a significant impact not only in reducing stress, but also in preventing back pain.
More than 80 participants in the study were recruited from Conwy County Council and randomised into a yoga group who received one 50 minute Dru Yoga session each week for 8 weeks along with a 20 min DVD for home practice, while a control group who received no intervention.
Dru Yoga is one of the UK’s largest schools of yoga, and includes therapeutic stretches and postures to ease back pain, flowing movements designed to relieve stress, and breathing exercises which calm the mind.
When compared with the control group, the yoga group scores were significantly lower for perceived stress, back pain, sadness and hostility, and much higher for feeling self-assured, attentive and serene.
"The results indicate that a workplace yoga intervention can reduce perceived stress and back pain and improve psychological wellbeing."
Study authors
Susan Williams, a Community Engagement Officer for Conwy County Council who participated in the yoga group, said: “I found that the Dru Yoga programme had a positive influence on my level of confidence. I felt more in control, ready, aware, dynamic, even recognizing my own power. I was happier, and it was so much easier to manage my circumstances.”
The study authors concluded: "The results indicate that a workplace yoga intervention can reduce perceived stress and back pain and improve psychological wellbeing.
"Larger randomised controlled trials are needed to determine the broader efficacy of yoga for improving workplace productivity and reducing sickness absence."
The study was published on-line in September 2012 in the Journal of Occupational Medicine (Oxford University Press). Read the study article >
First randomised controlled trial into Dru Yoga - university research
In 2008, research into the benefits of Dru Yoga was conducted at the University of Bangor (UK). 48 employees were randomised into a yoga group and a wait-list control group.
The yoga group were given Dru Yoga for six weeks with three 60 minute classes per week. The wait-list control group received no intervention during the six week study but were offered free classes after the trial. Before and after measurements were obtained with the Profile of Mood States - Bipolar, and the Inventory of Positive Psychological Attitudes.
Results from a 2008 randomised control study into the effects of Dru Yoga
Dru Yoga participants recorded substantial increases in seven key areas of wellbeing:
| Area of wellbeing | Increase |
| More composed - less anxious | 120% |
| More clear-minded - less confused | 500% |
| More elated - less depressed | 240% |
| More energised - less tired | 270% |
| More agreeable - less hostile | 100% |
| More confident - less unsure | 210% |
| Life purpose and satisfaction | 330% |
| Self confidence during stress | 650% |
This study pioneers efforts to show that Dru Yoga benefits not just your physical health. Dru Yoga also benefits your emotional, mental and spiritual life - all of which are likely to improve your relationships, sense of purpose and connectedness to what's important in your life.
There is now a plethora of randomised controlled trial research showing the benefits of yoga to a whole gamut of health conditions including heart disease, pms, breast cancer side effects, back pain, depression, and cancer and there are many more.
The benefits of meditation
John Jones
Dru Meditation teacher training course coordinator
Science is now agreeing that meditation can be a powerful form of stress relief and can help general health.
More and more research is also being conducted on the benefits of meditation. Studies have shown that meditation helps a variety of conditions including: stress, depression, heart disease, cancer, back pain, asthma, anxiety, high blood pressure, sleep problems and allergies.
Meditation has also been shown to decrease general pain levels, boost your immune system, improve mood, increase self awareness and even increase brain size.
Here is small summary of the current research:
- Meditation creates a unique hypo-metabolic state, in which the metabolism is in an even deeper state of rest than during sleep. During sleep, oxygen consumption drops by 8 percent, but during meditation, it drops by 10 to 20 percent.
- Meditation is the only activity that reduces blood lactate, a marker of stress and anxiety.
- The calming hormones melatonin and serotonin are increased by meditation, and the stress hormone cortisol is decreased.
- Meditators secrete more of the youth-related hormone DHEA as they age than non-meditators. Meditating forty-five-year-old males have an average of 23 percent more DHEA than non-meditators, and meditating females have an average of 47 percent more. This helps decrease stress, heighten memory, preserve sexual function, and control weight.
- Meditation has a profound effect upon three key indicators of aging: hearing ability, blood pressure, and vision of close objects.
- Long-term meditators experience 80 percent less heart disease and 50 percent less cancer than nonmeditators.
- 75 percent of insomniacs were able to sleep normally when they meditated.
- 34 percent of people with chronic pain significantly reduced medication when they began meditating.
Want to experience the benefits?
You've read about the benefits, but why not make it your own experience?
Dru Yoga Survey Results
Andrew Wells and Janet Scharbow
Co-directors Dru Australia
In 2005 we asked 440 Dru practitioners across the world what their experience was, and this is what they said:
Dru Yoga is highly effective for helping reduce stress and tension
- 89% say they are better able to handle stress while over 84% regularly experience less body tension.
- 91% say that Dru Yoga transforms negative thinking.
- About 69% report that they have more positive sleep patterns.
Dru Yoga significantly eases back problems
- 72% experience a positive change in their back pain after doing Dru Yoga.
- 93% of respondents experienced greater flexibility in spine and joints.
- 84% experience an improvement in overall body tension, a significant factor in decreasing back pain.
Dru Yoga is particularly effective in transforming painful emotions into positive and solving conflicts
- 83% of respondents notice that they have a greater ability to handle their emotions since doing Dru Yoga.
- 84% experience a positive shift in their mood after practicing Dru Yoga.
- 73% have a better ability to deal with conflict.
Dru Yoga helps you create a better society! It helps people have more harmonious relationships and find greater peace within.
- 79% of people practicing Dru Yoga experience higher levels of serenity.
- 73% have a better ability to deal with conflict.
- 79% report they are more patient and open with others.
- 82% feel more tolerant towards others and over 76% feel greater feelings of compassion for others.
- 74% report a positive improvement in their communication skills and over 74% report an improvement in their ability to handle relationships.
Dru Yoga is a powerful tool for enhancing physical energy and vitality
- 85% of respondents experience a boost in their energy levels after doing Dru Yoga.
- 82% of participants notice an improvement in their strength and stamina.
- 92% of respondents report that their body awareness has improved.
What kind of people are experiencing these massive transformations in their lives? About 65% are students of Dru Yoga or Dru Meditation classes; 35% are their teachers.
Amazingly, nearly 50% of these people say they practice their Dru less than once every five days. Imagine gaining all these benefits from something you do only once a week or so!
And then imagine how much you'd gain if you practiced some of these easy self-help approaches every few days.