Kells woman bringing 'Yoga4Health' programme to Ireland wants therapy to work with traditional medicine

A Kells woman who is bringing the first "Yoga4Health" programme to Ireland says she hopes the therapy will go hand in hand with traditional medicine in Ireland in the future.

Martina Meegan spent 20 years as a radiographer working with cancer patients in St Luke's Hospital in Dublin before merging her passion for healthcare and complimentary therapies and is now offering a pilot scheme in the Kells Resource Centre based on yoga improving health and well being.

Yoga4Health is a 10-week social prescribing prevention programme that commissioned in by the NHS in England and delivered by Yoga in Healthcare Alliance teachers. It's aimed at supporting groups of 12-15 people to achieve lifestyle change through daily yoga practices. Classes (which started last Thursday) are taken in a chair or on a yoga mat.

In the UK you can be referred into the service if you suffer from mild depression, mild anxiety, have prediabetes, need to improve your heart health feel socially isolated or are registered with a GP.

The initiative is not offered as part of the healthcare system in Ireland but Martina is hoping that that will change.

"The original programme was commissioned, designed and delivered in the UK by the NHS," she said.

"There was a group of yoga teachers and medical professionals who came together to design the programme.

"It has been shown to have a positive effect on many levels including a decrease in stress, anxiety, and depression with increases in social connectedness, sense of wellbeing including physical health and happiness.

"The pilot yoga programme that I am offering in Kells Family Resource Centre will offer people an opportunity to bring about positive lifestyle changes using yoga techniques including breathing, mindfullness and gentle movement

"Non-communicable disease(NCD) that are directly related to lifestyle currently places the biggest burden in healthcare in terms of its negative impact on mortality, healthcare costs, medical and psychological symptoms, wellness and quality of life. NCDs includes cardiovascular diseases, obesity, Type-2 diabetes and are often associated with poor lifestyle behaviours. So it focuses on how can we help people bring about better lifestyle choices and deal with anxiety."

Martina who has been teaching general yoga to the public for over six years now trained in Yoga4Health last year says the ethos of offering this alternative therapy free of charge under the UK model is something she would like to see in Ireland.

"The programme made available most importantly to people who can't afford to go to a yoga class. Very often people have other issues or chronic illnesses. In the UK it is offered under the umbrella of social prescribing so that a GP or a member of a primary health care team can send people to participate in a yoga programme>

"It has been proven that people who participate in the programme need less medical care. Ideally in Ireland I would love to see this offered for free. I'm offering my services for free and have asked people to pay a small fee but that is just to cover the cost of renting the premises. It is the first step in trying to establish the programme, build credibility and hopefully we can move in the right direction."

There has been a shift in how healthcare professionals are approaching treating patients with a more holistic method being taken into consideration as Martina explains:

"GPS are looking at supportive therapies and looking at lifestyle as apposed to the model where you just write prescriptions. I think there is change at how we are looking at the medical model as well. The important thing is it sits alongside the medical model. We are not suggesting by any stretch of the imagination that it replaces medical intervention, actually quite the opposite, we want to work alongside the medical profession."

For more information see "Yoga with Martina" on Facebook.