69

february 2016

yogajournal.com

TIFFANY CARONIA LIES on her back, fidgets for

five seconds, and then slips into Savasana—

palms up, legs ever so slightly externally rotated,

a gentle smile across her mouth. It’s a pose the

35-year-old vinyasa yoga teacher in Los Angeles

knows well, which is why it comes so naturally

to her here, on her acupuncturist’s table.

The fact that Caronia is able to quiet her

mind and drop any attachment to external

senses—the practice of pratyahara, the fifth limb

of Patanjali’s eight limbs of yoga—is one of the

reasons she experiences such great benefits from

her acupuncture sessions, says Caronia’s acu-

puncturist, Maria Villella, LAC, a vinyasa and

Ashtanga Yoga teacher in Los Angeles. “With

any healing modality, the more you’re able to put

yourself in a deeply relaxed state, the more bene-

fits you’ll receive,” says Villella. “I think it has

a lot to do with the mind-body connection we

develop on our yoga mats.”

Caronia says her trust in Villella is also key:

“I truly believe that what Maria does will help

me,” she says. There’s scientific proof Caronia is

on to something. Researchers are seeing time

and again that our expectations of healing play a

big role in the psychological and physical benefits

we experience. In one recent study published in

the journal Science Translational Medicine, scien-

tists looked at people with recurring migraine

headaches over the course of multiple attacks and

found that when docs told patients they had high

expectations that a treatment would work well,

it did—even if it was a sugar pill, and even when

the patients were told they were getting the

placebo. Other research has found that when

patients believe in the effectiveness of a therapy—

whether they get a vote of confidence from their

practitioners or not—it can stimulate real physio-

logical responses, including changes in heart rate,

blood pressure, and even chemical activity in the

brain that decreases pain, anxiety, and fatigue.

“This research is proof that there are a num-

ber of psychological factors that play a role in how

well a treatment works,” says Kristin Skotnes

Vikjord, a clinical psychologist and yoga teacher

in Amsterdam. “The bottom line is that if you

seek out treatment that you believe will work, it

has a better chance of working.” Gail Dubinsky,

MD, a physician and yoga teacher in Sebastopol,

California, adds that treatments that really reso-

nate with you have another benefit: It’s more

likely you’ll stick with them and stay compliant

with the other suggestions the practitioner offers.

Of course, there are other important factors to

consider when deciding which healing modality

will work best for you. For starters, you want to

be sure your choice is a safe option for your condi-

tion: You might do some research, talk to your

doctor, and reach out to others with your same

ailment to learn what helped them the most.

There’s also the convenience factor: It’s probably

not realistic to drive an hour each way for hydro-

therapy when there’s massage and reflexology in

your neighborhood.

From acupuncture and aromatherapy

to reiki and reflexology, you have

plenty of options when it comes to

integrative therapies. Yet choosing

the modalities that will offer the

most healing benefits for you

can be tricky. Follow this guide to

13 popular treatments to find your

alternative-medicine match.

ingPATH

STORY BY MEGHAN RABBITT

PHOTOGRAPHY BY THE VOORHES