6 benefits of yoga for mental health — Summer Camp in the French Countryside July 21-27

Hi everyone. Bonjour tout le monde.

Okay, so very happy to welcome.

On est très heureux de vous accueillir dans ce dans ce Zoom. Est-ce qu'on voulait juste avoir un petit aperçu de qui est-ce qui parle français? Who's French speaker? English speaker? So maybe you guys can just type in the in the chat whether you're a Frenchy or someone speaking on English. So that we can adapt what we are saying, what we're sharing with Jonathan. Okay, so well, if you if you speak both, it's even better, of course. English but learning French. Okay, Violet.

So that's great.

So for those who just came in, we're just checking in who's speaking English or French here, so we can. But apparently, it's a little bit of both. C'est un petit peu les deux, donc on va pouvoir. On va pouvoir faire un peu français-anglais anyway since I speak both and I mean better French obviously, but Jonathan speaks a little bit of French. Jonathan parle un petit peu français, donc on va aller un peu de l'un à l'autre. French-English, English-French.

OK. Je comprends mieux que je parle.

So just to give you a little bit of context, pour vous donner un petit peu de contexte, donc on est ici pour pour parler du Summer Camp qu'on organise en juillet avec Jonathan en France, à côté de Paris, du 21 au 28 juillet. So we're here to talk about— on va parler de ce Summer Camp qu'on organise sur le yoga et la santé mentale du 21 au 28 juillet. Et l'idée de cette présentation, c'est aussi d'aborder la thématique de quels sont les bénéfices, et en l'occurrence les 6 bénéfices qui qui nous paraissent les plus importants du yoga sur la santé mentale. What are to us the six most impactful benefits of yoga on mental health? Et avant de commencer, before we start, we just wanted to introduce ourselves. So I'll introduce Jonathan and he'll introduce me. Je vais présenter Jonathan et il me présentera. Donc Jonathan, on s'est rencontrés il y a maintenant quatre ans. En ligne parce que parce qu'en fait Jonathan a créé une conférence qui est assez incroyable qui s'appelle Yoga and Neuroscience. Jonathan created this conference ten years ago, but the online version four years ago. It's called Yoga and Neuroscience. Et le but de cette conférence c'est de de comprendre tous les effets. Pour ceux qui viennent de nous rejoindre, on est en train de se présenter. For those who just joined, we're introducing ourselves. The benefits of the goal of the conference, Jonathan Creative, is to gather people who teach yoga and people who do research on yoga, on yoga and mental health. Donc le but de la conférence, c'est de réunir les personnes qui enseignent le yoga et les personnes qui font de la recherche sur le yoga, sur tous ses effets, sur la santé mentale notamment. Et d'apporter plus de connaissances et plus de ponts, to create bridges between the two worlds. Et à côté de ça, Jonathan est aussi, enfin à côté de ça, mostly he's a neurologue, donc neurologiste, I think.

Yep, neurologiste, that's perfect.

So what basically is study brain, brain connection, nervous system, and all nervous system diseases, donc toutes les maladies liées au système nerveux, notamment crise d'épilepsie, if I'm correct, and other diseases more related to elderly, donc des maladies qui peuvent arriver plus à un âge avancé. Et en fait, donc ça fait 3 ans qu'on travaille ensemble avec Jonathan. Au début, juste on échangeait, ensuite j'ai commencé à faire un cours pour la conférence, une conférence cette année. Donc en cette année, Jonathan m'a dit qu'il voulait faire un tour d'Europe. This year, Jonathan said he wanted to do a European tour, and I was like so excited. I was like, okay, we really need to do something in France. It's going to be great. And that's how we came up with this summer camp idea with Jonathan as the main guest. Cette idée de summer camp avec Jonathan en principal invité, and also other people who are French and work on yoga and mental health. Donc c'est à la fois Jonathan, mais aussi d'autres personnes qui travaillent sur le yoga et la santé mentale en France, qui font de la recherche ou qui sont yoga thérapeutes en France. So I'm giving the talk to Jonathan.

Et so thank you for the very generous introduction. And so I'll et de la France, obviously. Elle a commencé sa carrière, career, is that how you say career? En entrepreneurship.

Exactly.

La technologie et je crois que c'est parce qu'elle crée les meilleurs websites. She makes the best sites and I think that's why. And elle crée aussi Instagram posts, le meilleur. And so, après ça, elle a fondé une école de yoga, École Sadhana, en France. So after her career in entrepreneurship, she founded a yoga school in France, à côté de Paris, so near Paris in the suburbs. And she also decided to become a schoolteacher, which is super cool. Elle a Elle est devenue, a devenu ou I forget which one.

Elle est devenue, elle est devenue, right?

Elle est devenue une prof pour les élèves. Quel âge?

CM2, so it's like from 10 to 12 years. 10 à 12 ans.

Yeah. Et où elle habite, il y a un endroit qui Uh, who— there's a place where everyone can be hosted and have an amazing yoga retreat. She's done many there, um, and so I think it's going to be the best time. I'm real— this is like going to be the highlight of my life, I think.

Thank you, Jonathan. Yeah, it was a great introduction. I'll just add something, is that Sadhana School, or Goal is to share, and that's why also we connected with Jonathan, is to share yoga informed by science. That's really in our DNA. Et depuis le début de la création de cette école, à mon retour d'Inde, j'ai créé cette école après avoir appris les techniques traditional techniques of yoga. J'ai essayé de m'entourer de personnes en France qui avaient une connaissance du cerveau et des effets du cerveau sur le système nerveux, notamment quelqu'un qui s'appelle Camille Allen qui fait de la recherche sur ces sujets. Donc c'est aussi pour ça qu'on travaille ensemble. So in this workshop, I'd say presentation, we'll do three things. On va commencer par juste cinq minutes de yoga, just five minutes of breathing that I guide, just to get in the mood and like be chill yogi people, just pour se mettre dans le dans l'humeur et dans le côté yoga. Et ensuite, on fera 15-20 minutes de conversation avec Jonathan pour voir quels sont vraiment les six benefits of yoga and mental health. I mean, there are many, many benefits, but the six one we wanted to focus on for the summer camp. Donc les six bénéfices du yoga sur la santé mentale sur lesquels on voulait se concentrer pour ce summer camp. Pourquoi et qu'est-ce que c'est? Et ensuite, on finira par répondre à vos questions si vous avez des questions sur ce qu'on a partagé, mais aussi sur le Summer Camp en lui-même, sur comment ça va s'organiser, qu'est-ce qu'on va faire, etc. Okay, so we can start with the breathing part. We just do a simple pranayama for those who know, so you can sit comfortably in your chair wherever you are. Roll back your shoulder. Donc vous pouvez juste vous asseoir confortablement, rouler vos épaules vers l'arrière. Si vous avez la possibilité de placer bien les pieds sur le sol, just press firmly your your feet onto the ground and try to elevate your sternum. Try to elevate your sternum and also to relax your belly. If you do have a chair with like a back, you can try and see if you can find. Find this vertical alignment, sacrum area to the top of the skull.

Donc, essayez de trouver un alignement vertical des os des fessiers jusqu'au sommet du crâne.

Donc, c'est vraiment, it's always this balance between being erected and also being relaxed.

And you can see your belly is really relaxed, and you can place your hands onto your belly. Placez vos mains sur votre ventre, and really just simply feeling the movement of your belly moving with the breath, and also bringing attention to your nostrils. So see also if you can just like relax the head. I feel like Whenever I do that, just like relax my head. I just instantly feel more like relaxed, less less in my head. Si vous laissez juste tomber la tête vers l'avant, mais tout en gardant les épaules vers l'arrière, keeping your shoulders back. Just feel the breath into your nostrils, and then you remove your hands. Essayez de ramener vos mains à l'extérieur de la cage thoracique. So move your hands on your chest, on the side of your chest, at the bottom of your rib cage basically. And see if you can make it a bit wider. So breathe in wider through your rib cage. While doing that, you can also try and just listen to the sound of the breathing going through your nostrils. Donc, juste essayer d'écouter le son de la respiration dans vos narines. And then gently moving your tip of your fingers on your upper chest, just relaxing your shoulders again and chin towards your heart. And just see if you can just feel the movement of your breath underneath your palms. Vous pouvez juste sentir les mouvements de la poitrine sous vos paumes de mains. Just relaxing your chin toward your heart. If you can do that on you, just like relax your head, your chin toward your heart. So we do that in a younger technique. We just really drop the head. It's really nice feeling. Then we move the hands on the face, so you place the little fingers beside nostrils and also relax your head completely and just see if you can feel the breath, maybe the air going in through the nostrils. And relax your palms onto your thighs. Relax the back of your head, roll your shoulders back, and exhale fully on your next breath. Expirez complètement sur la prochaine respiration. Sucking the belly, donc essayez d'aspirer le ventre contre la colonne. Et suspend the breath for a second. Juste faites une pause pour un instant et inspirez à travers le rib cage. So breathing through the rib cage in one, two, three, four, and pause. And exhale, 6 divisions. 1, 2, 3, 4, close. Inhale deeply. 1, 2, 3, 4, close. Exhale deeply. 1, 2, 3, 4. Inhale, close, and exhale deeply. Inhale, close, exhale. 1, Two, three, four. Inhale.

Exhale.

One, two, three, four. Sucks the belly in and inhale the first bend into your chest.

Donc inspirez une première bande dans votre cage thoracique.

Pause.

Une deuxième bande in the upper chest.

Pause.

And last one into the shoulders.

Pause. And exhale deeply.

This technique is called Viloma. Basically, we breathe in at different levels of the chest, and I really like it.

It's really nice. So you can repeat.

So inhale, the first bend onto your chest.

Good.

Second bend.

Good. Third bend.

Good.

And exhale.

Deep.

Last one.

Inhale, first bend.

Hold.

Second bend.

Hold. Third bend. Hold. And Inhale deeply and just take a deep breath and exhale completely. And move your chin up and you can open your eyes if you closed it before.

And I hope everyone is feeling more relaxed now. I mean, it's really short, but sometimes pranayama has been proven to be the most efficient technique of yoga on stress at very, very fast. It's like the fast technique that can help you get in a better mood. La petite technique qui peut vous permettre d'aller, de vous sentir mieux rapidement. Et en fait, on voulait aussi commencer par ça. We also wanted to start with this little technique because I think when we research into yoga and mantras, sometimes we get into very difficult things. On s'intéresse à des choses assez difficiles, compliquées, complicated things, and we forget the most important thing, which is yoga is efficient when it's simple. Le yoga, c'est efficace quand ça reste simple. Et on a toujours cette question, c'est comment ça se fait qu'une chose aussi simple que la respiration, que les postures puissent avoir des effets aussi radicaux, aussi incroyables sur la santé mentale et sur autant de troubles mentaux? We always have this question in mind, which is how such a simple thing as yoga, such a simple practice, can have so many different effects on mental health. And this is also the topic of the book of Ed Stern that a few of you may know, who is like a yoga teacher, also investigating neuroscience, and he's also a big guest of Jonathan's conference. Anyway, so we had this, we would always want, we wanted to talk about this. How come yoga has so many Incredible effects being such simple practice. So maybe we can start with this one, Jonathan, with this question.

Yes, and I I have a few answers, but I think the most important one. J'ai quelques quelques réponses, mais le meilleur, the best one is that yoga is a pleiotropic. Intervention. And everyone's like, what the heck did you just say? But in, in medicine, there's this idea of mechanism. So when you have something that works, it works by something. It has to have a causal chain that results in its effect. Yoga's causal chain is multi-pronged, and that's what pleiotropic means. So it works by many mechanisms. And so when people ask, you know, why does yoga work? I don't think we're ever gonna say it's this one molecule that changes and that leads to all the effects. I don't think it works that way. So le yoga ne marche pas simplement une molécule ou quelque chose comme ça. And so the, you know, if we look at the most evidence-based ways that yoga works, It's— we can look at the stress system, right? That's one of the most well-understood areas that yoga has been studied. And there are huge meta-analyses showing that every manifestation of stress is improved by yoga. Not only that, we can look then at the signaling cascades of stress, like cortisol or the sympathetic nervous system measured many ways. All of those improve with yoga. But then we could go even further back and look at brain processes that change related to stress with yoga. And the, all the evidence there is the same. So there's this huge review paper. It's, I forget who wrote it. Maybe I think it's Dr. Gard. I'm not sure, but the, they took all of the neuroimaging papers out there and put them together and showed that one of the main changes was the relationship between the prefrontal cortex and the amygdala. And so how, you know, this can be thought of instead of using the anatomical terms, how your executive function is able to regulate your stress networks.

Very interesting. I'm just going to do a little translation so everybody's on the same page. And what Jonathan says is that in fact, yoga is not one thing specific in the organism, but it acts at many levels of our system nerveux, of our brain. Principalement quand même le système nerveux autonome sur la régulation du stress et le lien entre le cortex préfrontal et l'amygdale. Et c'est vrai que le yoga, c'est pas une seule chose, c'est plutôt une manière de vivre. Finalement, justement, la relation entre le cortex préfrontal et l'amygdale, ou même le système nerveux, sont eux-mêmes des corollaires impliqués dans beaucoup de problèmes de santé mentale. Et c'est vrai que la connaissance qu'on a aujourd'hui de la santé mentale nous permet de rebattre les cartes entre les différentes diseases, between the different mental disorders, and see common patterns between them. Do you agree with this?

Yes. And while that might be one common finding among a lot of the studies, that doesn't mean there aren't others. So there are many more, and this is why I said that it's A multi-pronged intervention. It has many mechanisms before. So some of the others include improved sleep, independent of stress. And you know, sleep has so many effects throughout the rest of the body and brain. So, la qualité du sommeil, le sommeil.

Okay.

Et ça, ça a des répercussions sur énormément de problématiques physiques et mentales.

Tout à fait.

Also, so besides that, there are other systems that change. So if we wanted to look at mental health disorders like addiction, there are— I only recently came across these papers. I don't know how it took me so long, but there are people who have looked at dopamine signaling in the brain, which is— dopamine has 2 main pathways in the brain. One of them controls movement, and the other one is involved in reward prediction. So deciding how rewarding something is going to be for you, how much you're going to like it. And the What they did is, and this is common, but it's amazing that this study has been done in yoga, is using radio tracers. So you inject molecules that are specific to dopamine, and you can see how active dopamine is in the brain.

Okay, really interesting. Jonathan partageait le fait que ça peut aussi avoir des effets en plus du stress, qui est quelque chose maintenant d'avéré sur le yoga. Il y a d'autres effets qu'on découvre seulement maintenant, par exemple reward, c'est récompense. Et ça pourrait aussi avoir un effet. On a seulement maintenant la technologie qui nous permet de comprendre ça. Et donc nous, on parle de— so we have this fact that yoga has so many effects on so many different mental disorders. And my next question for you, Jonathan, is why did we choose these 6 benefits of yoga and mental health? So just do a quick recap. Je fais juste un petit Rappel rapide des thématiques qu'on va aborder lors de la conférence. So we'll start with again anxiety, and this will be Jonathan Day. And then we continue with something which is going to be really interesting, I think, is yoga and mental health, but at a political level. Donc où est-ce qu'on en est sur la santé mentale en France d'un point de vue politique, d'un point de vue public, et comment le yoga peut s'insérer là-dedans? Et ça, ce sera une journée avec Camille Test qui est spécialiste du sujet, qui a écrit un livre qui s'appelle Politiser le bien-être. Then we move on to yoga and eating disorder, donc yoga et TCA, avec Alexia Michel de la recherche sur le sujet. Yoga and trauma, which is also a topic with someone doing research in France on the subject, and yoga and empathy. On Friday, and we end with you again, attention. So that's attention, empathy, anxiety, trauma, and eating disorder that we'll study. So why did we choose these 6 subjects, Jonathan? Pourquoi est-ce qu'on a choisi ces 6 sujets?

Oui, la santé mentale est un topic partout. So mental health seems to be a topic everywhere these days, and you know, sometimes it seems like it's too much. Like, why are we, why are we talking about this so much? But if you look at the incidence of the most disabling diseases on Earth, it's overwhelmingly mental health now. And it, it used to be that it was, you know, 100 years ago infections, 40 to 20 years ago it was cancer and heart disease, which are still very prevalent and disabling. But if we look at Younger generations, it's overwhelmingly mental health. This is the leading cause of suffering and disability in our population, and so it is. It deserves a lot of attention.

Yeah, obviously. Yeah.

Should I try to summarize that one? Let's see what I can do. So, la santé mentale est un sujet très important. Quelquefois, il semble que C'est trop. On parle de santé mentale trop, mais c'est il faut parler de santé mentale parce que le si on regarde si on I don't know how to say disabling. You mean like debilitating?

Like you mean disease? That's what you mean?

Yeah, like so disability in medicine is you know diseases is one thing those cause like suffering, but disability is what really takes people away from work.

On dirait des troubles psychiques. Troubles psychiques.

Yeah, so les plus troubles mal sont ceux de santé mentale.

Right.

Et pourquoi specifically we chose this one? So I think anxiety is quite evident for two reasons because First, you are talking that the prevalence of mental health disorder is huge in France. I mean, everywhere in the world, anxiety has grown bigger, especially with the COVID and everything. Mais spécialement en France, l'anxiété est assez élevée. Sur je crois que c'est 21% des personnes qui ont un trouble anxieux ou quoi vivent, sachant qu'évidemment il y a une différence entre troubles anxieux et stress. C'est pas exactement la même chose, mais anxiety is something big. And we also chose this subject because Yoga has proven. Le yoga a fait ses preuves sur le stress et l'anxiété. Donc dans les sujets qu'on a choisis, on a des sujets où le yoga a déjà fait ses preuves, on va dire. L'anxiété, aussi l'attention, l'empathie dans une certaine mesure. Et on a des sujets qui sont encore, qui sont un peu plus dans le domaine exploratoire pour l'instant. Notamment yoga and trauma, yoga and eating disorders. Si ça subject that I mean, we have some proofs, but there are still lots of things to research on. Would you agree with that, Jonathan?

I would. I think for anxiety and depression, the evidence is, I wouldn't say overwhelming, but it is strong. It is strong. There are large meta-analyses, the highest level of evidence published on anxiety and depression, you know, yoga interventions for anxiety and depression, and the effect is More than, you know, right now everyone's talking about aerobic exercise for anxiety and depression. But when the meta-analyses have been done comparing yoga to aerobic exercise, yoga is more effective. And I can, you know, if you want me to share my screen, I could show that right now. I have my little presentation pulled up, but the, the other ones are still— they require a lot more research.

That's actually interesting because I think you're touching on something which is so important. You Tu soulignes quelque chose d'extrêmement important qui est l'efficacité, la question de l'efficacité, the question of efficiency when it comes to mental health. And I think this is something even bigger or more important in France because we are not a very efficient mindset people in France compared to the US. En France, on n'est pas très dans l'efficacité, ça dépend bien sûr, mais Et surtout quand il s'agit de santé mentale, on a une longue histoire traditionnelle. We have a long history tradition with Freudian psychoanalysis, which has proven to be so inefficient. And, you know, it's crazy because whenever I speak with some of my friends who are like more intellectual Parisian kind of people and they still do this Freud thing because we have such a strong culture and when it comes to— we don't really consider mental health as a scientific topic, basically. It's changing, but so it's really important that we're addressing this efficiency question, especially when we see how it's such a public health issue, mental health. And we both believe, Jonathan and I, that yoga has a huge part in— is really Can really help make mental health policies more efficient. Could you explain how? How yoga can? Juste pour dire un petit peu en français, il y a vraiment cette question de l'efficacité qui est compliquée à aborder en France parce qu'on a souvent associé la santé mentale à des choses plus de l'ordre psychologique, philosophique, avec l'influence de Freud notamment. Et on pense avec Jonathan et d'autres personnes que le yoga peut être un outil Au service d'une santé mentale, au service de politiques de santé mentale efficaces. How do you think we could do that, Jonathan? How yoga can be efficient?

Especially if we compare it to like psychotherapy. And of course, psychotherapy works for many people. You know, there's no reason to like completely disparage psychotherapy. But, and I think you were going to ask a question that I might want to say this for again, but If you look at— if the hypothesis is that talking about mental health, simply talking about it, makes people more aware of it and makes them regulate better, and then they, you know, should do better, we would have better mental health now. And that, that's not what we see. So it's in fact, as people have put psychotherapy parlance into the whole world, and everyone's kind of talking about therapy, mental health has actually gotten worse. You know, I mean, if you look at the younger age groups, it's, it's at critical levels, you know, like it's very bad. And it seems like the more that we talk about it, the worse that they do. Now, that doesn't mean that that's causation, right? That's just kind of an association that's noticed. But the thing about yoga is there is no talking. There is simply doing, right? And so the practices have these effects on stress without kind of having people label everything they experience as anxiety. You know, one of the reasons that people think talk therapy has failed is because at this point, sometimes people look at everything they experience and go, oh, I'm just anxious. I'm never going to get over this. Sometimes it's normal to just not feel good, and it doesn't have to be anxiety. And so the idea with yoga is— and this is all hypothetical, right? This isn't something that, you know, I can prove right now. But the idea that why it might be more effective with— more effective than psychotherapy is that it has people regulating themselves improving their interpretation and they call it appraisal. So like how you kind of assign value to what you experience, it changes how you do that in a way that you kind of see things as— I mean, think about what yoga really is. It's seeing the body and mind as this kind of separate thing and you're observing them, you're mindful of them. And that is shown to be way more effective for mental health right now.

Exactly, exactly. And I think when we touch upon efficiency, I think you said it's like you you take care of yourself. So it's like it's it's an autonomous practice or it could be actually le yoga ça peut être une pratique autonome mais en tout cas c'est l'objectif et ça c'est aussi une donnée très importante quand on parle de d'efficacité et de santé mentale mais aussi de réduction de coûts d'être moins dépendant à un système de santé d'être capable de prendre soin de soi-même. Ça fait partie des choses qu'on abordera pendant la journée yoga et politique santé publique, parce que avoir ce discours rationnel et d'efficacité auprès des hôpitaux ou des structures de soins, c'est probablement une des manières les plus efficaces d'apporter le yoga dans ces espaces de soins. Which brings my next question, Jonathan, is If you're a yoga teacher, or yeah, if you're a yoga teacher, what do you think are the opportunities for you to learn about mental health? À quoi ça sert finalement en tant que professeur de yoga d'apprendre des choses sur la santé mentale, sur le cerveau, etc.?

Yeah, I'm very impassioned by that question. The, the, I think we have this amazing opportunity with yoga teacher. There's so many yoga teachers now, and they strongly believe in yoga. But, and, and the number of people doing yoga across the world, and especially in the United States and in France, is way higher than it's ever been, of course. But there's still a large segment of people who are resistant to yoga. And not that, you know, not that everyone has to do yoga, of course, but The, the opportunity to make yoga more appealing by highlighting these benefits is enormous. And I think if yoga teachers everywhere know these benefits and are able to share them with their students, not only is it motivating, but it also improves. It just improves how people are going to practice and teach and advocate for yoga. It's going to be You know, there's a researcher that many of you, I think, attended the conference, so you know him, Satbir Khalsa, and I love him. I think he's amazing and one of the best advocates for yoga. And he says yoga needs to be in every school. And I'm sure Charlotte agrees with that. And, and kids learning these self-regulation techniques, it's enormous. You know, it changes their personal development, their ability to cope with stress, their ability to handle their studies, their interpersonal relationships. All of that stuff improves dramatically with yoga, and that that's evidence-based. Like there are researchers. We actually had a whole day on yoga and child development a few years ago, and you know the evidence is there for that. And so I hope I answered your question. I'm not sure.

I teach. I just want to add that on a very practical level, the yoga market when your yoga teacher is crowded, donc c'est très difficile de faire sa place en fait en tant que professeur de yoga, de gagner bien sa vie pour parler de choses très concrètes. It's really difficult to make to make an earning out of it, and I think there are this combining yoga and material arts can help you, as Jonathan said, get into places where people don't know about yoga yet, like schools, hospitals, or don't have the means to do it. Ça peut aussi aider à augmenter la valeur perçue. D'un cours. It can also improve the perceived value of your class, can bring your class from just like a physical fitness thing to something that can help people at a very deep level, basically. So in very concrete terms, increase your price or go to like enterprise, like teach yoga in enterprise where they have better money, things like this. Le fait d'avoir ces données sur votre yoga, de savoir exactement sur quoi ça agit, peut vous permettre finalement d'augmenter vos prix, d'aller vers un public plus Corporate plus entreprise, etc. Et je rajouterais parce que Jonathan disait ça permet de, ça permet, je sais plus ce que c'était exactement.

I think the last part was how you, yeah, how you improve your personal practice and how you teach because now you've seen these studies, you know what they did, you can kind of follow the script.

Exactly, so you can improve your teaching. But you can also avoid mistake, I think, because yoga, you said it, is practiced by so many people today. Il y a tellement de personnes qui pratiquent le yoga aujourd'hui, mais qui pratiquent réellement le yoga? Who practice real? I don't feel like this real yoga thing, but you know if you practice like a vinyasa class and it's great, it's a great fitness exercise, but I don't think you will get the benefits on your attention as if you practice a deep pranayama class. And I do believe that yoga to some extent can encourage some also negative things on mental health, like narcissism on social networks. It's not always. Donc je pense que ça peut aussi éclairer une bonne manière de pratiquer et d'enseigner yoga, de partager yoga.

Yeah. And I, what I find really interesting, and this is probably a little bit separate from this discussion. Is people start out drawn to yoga for some reason, you know, but if we, if we offer it to people for mental health, they may come for that, right? There are many people struggling with that. But then as they progress in their practice, suddenly they have so many more interests in yoga. They're, they're interested in compassion, they're interested in helping other people, they're, they start getting interested in self-realization, you know, before you know it, they're singing kirtan.

It's like, We do sing kirtans in our retreats so that you know. We sing kirtan lots of nights in the in Sadhana School at Sadhana School. We will this summer, the summer camp. Yeah, we love it.

It's it's fascinating. I mean, I I had that journey too. Like I if you asked me to sing kirtan ten years ago, I'd be like.

Yeah.

Que les personnes qui sont intéressées par ce sujet se rencontrent, puissent travailler ensemble sur des nouveaux projets, des projets de recherche, des projets de advocacy, scientific advocacy auprès de l'État, auprès des hôpitaux. Donc l'idée, c'est vraiment de rassembler nos forces en tant que professeurs de yoga, en tant que professionnels de soins et de savoir comment est-ce qu'on peut amener un yoga Plus intelligent, plus efficace au service du bien public.

Et beaucoup de félicitations en finissant le training. Mary Beth mentioned that she was finishing her yoga training this afternoon.

I just had one last question, Jonathan. It's like, how did you get personally interested into yoga and mental health? What's your journey basically with yoga?

I first read about yoga as a teenager in a book in high school. So au lycée, au lycée, j'ai lu un livre qui s'appelle Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse. And I was fascinated and I wanted to learn more about yoga. So I Wikipedia'd, you know, Wikipedia rabbit-holed my way to finding the Bhagavad Gita and the Yoga Sutras.

But I never thought I would find a real yoga teacher.

And then I did. And so I became a very serious student of yoga. And later on, I was curious about science. I was pursuing a science career and thought that I was a pariah in science because I was a hippie from yoga. And I thought I was a— I thought I was a weirdo in yoga. I believed in science and When I started looking on scientific databases about yoga studies and realized how many were published, I just saw this enormous shift in how I thought about yoga and the opportunities it provides. And so my interest in mental health came from the literature. You know, like this, this is there. Like this is something that needs to get out.

Yeah, donc juste pour refaire un petit peu en français. Donc Jonathan disait que c'était intéressant en tant qu'adolescent. Au yoga d'abord à travers la littérature plutôt, la Bhagavad Gita, les Yoga Sutras, donc plutôt la dimension philosophique que pratique. Et c'était en tant qu'étudiant en médecine et puis ensuite médecin, il y avait cette sorte de tension entre son intérêt pour le yoga qui pouvait paraître comme une pratique plus ésotérique et puis son éducation scientifique, son bagage scientifique. Et en fait, il est tombé sur des recherches sur le yoga et ça lui crazy hippie. It was not a crazy hippie, mais aussi de l'apporter aux autres en fait. And I really connect with your story because I'm not a doctor myself, but I come from a doctor family. And when I came across yoga and I, I mean, I loved it so much and changed so many things in the way I see the world and everything. It was really hard for me to convince them to like get them to understand what. What was this weird thing I was doing and how great it was and everything? C'est difficile pour moi d'expliquer ça à ma famille scientifique et etc. Et c'est en partie pour ça que j'ai commencé à aussi à m'intéresser à la recherche et puis ensuite à créer cette école Sadhana. So I really connect with your with your story, and I think it's great.

So Charlotte, can you tell us more about? What to expect at the retreat in France?

Yeah.

It's like in the middle of the countryside. It's a beautiful place. Et l'idée, c'est c'est trois choses en fait. C'est de rencontrer d'autres personnes qui sont profs de yoga, pratiquants, personnels de soins, mais qui veulent apprendre plus sur le yoga et ses effets sur la santé mentale, éventuellement le l'injecter dans leur pratique, dans leur enseignement, éventuellement avoir en plus un projet de recherche. D'éducation à la science auprès d'un public plus large, etc. Donc c'est de connecter avec des personnes un peu comme vous, en fait, qui ont les mêmes centres d'intérêt que vous. C'est évidemment d'apprendre où est-ce qu'on en est en recherche, sur la recherche yoga et santé mentale, avec les meilleures personnes pour parler de ça en France et aux US, puisqu'on a Jonathan qui vient, mais aussi en France, donc des personnes qui vont venir. On a donc Alexia Michel qui fait de la recherche sur les effets du yoga et troubles alimentaires, Amandine Mousset qui participe au protocole sur yoga et trauma à l'hôpital psychiatrique de Villévrard, et Camille Teste qui travaille sur les enjeux politiques du yoga, et peut-être, peut-être d'autres, ça va venir prochainement. Et donc l'idée, c'est à la fois d'apprendre des choses théoriques, mais aussi d'avoir une approche un peu plus pratique sur comment est-ce qu'on collecte des données quand on est professeur de yoga, Comment est-ce qu'on approche un hôpital si on veut initier un projet de recherche? Comment est-ce qu'on crée un projet dans une école? Puisque moi je travaille là-dessus aussi. Donc d'avoir une approche un peu pratique de comment est-ce qu'on fait concrètement pour amener le yoga auprès d'un public plus large et avec une approche scientifique. Et un fond scientifique. Et la dernière chose, c'est de passer des— ce sera aussi un moment pour vous, quoi, un moment sympathique, puisqu'en plus des cours qu'on a prévus, on a évidemment beaucoup de moments de pratique. Donc on commence tous les jours par une pratique posturale que je guiderai, ou peut-être d'autres personnes qui participeront à la conférence, posturale, respiration, Méditation en lien avec la thématique de la journée. Le soir aussi, on a une deuxième pratique yoga thérapie ou restorative yoga yoga thérapie qui est aussi en lien avec ce qu'on apprend. Donc par exemple, sur la journée yoga and eating disorder, we'll have a yoga therapy class which is adapted for people with eating disorder. Par exemple, sur la journée yoga et troubles alimentaires, on aura une pratique adaptée aux personnes qui souffrent de troubles alimentaires. Et puis en plus de ça, on aura beaucoup de moments pour connecter. En fait, j'ai oublié le terme en anglais, ça va me revenir. Quand on fait du team building, enfin building things with connect, on va faire du canoë, aller visiter le village, parce que donc le lieu de retraite se situe dans un magnifique village avec un château. Donc l'idée, c'est aussi de passer une semaine de vacances Si c'est une semaine de vacances pour vous sympa, et bien sûr d'apprendre et d'initier des relations qui, je l'espère, vous serviront dans vos prochains projets.

J'essaie de traduire.

I can see that. I can see your translation. That's great.

I was trying to translate everyone, but I couldn't keep up. Another another goal. This is just my goal there, but I'm also going to be practicing my French. So everyone. Everyone else.

We do a lot of French. On fera beaucoup de beaucoup de French. On fera français anglais. Donc si certains d'entre vous ne parlent pas anglais, ne vous inquiétez pas. Moi, je serai toujours là pour traduire. À l'inverse, on the opposite, if you speak only English, we'd also find arrangement solutions. So if you're like different countries from Europe, you want to come to France just for this event, you can do that, of course.

Yeah, we'll probably do that with like a technological solution if we have to.

Like, you'll do that because you're more technical than I am. So does anyone have any question on either on the topic or on the summer camp? Do you guys have any question? You can ask in the chat if you do, or I can unmute you. Violet, you want to ask a question?

Thank you.

I think also somebody else might have been raising their hand before me, but hi.

Hi there.

Hi. Enchantée. So yeah, I'm working on my French, and this is all so great. I'm so excited. I'm a yoga instructor myself and just recently got into the world of neuro. So very exciting. But I'm just wondering. Like a couple of logistics questions. Like, A, what's the name of the town? You may have said it, but I, I got lost in the French, lost in translation.

La Roque.

Thank you.

And then just like, like if you could go more into the logistics, like, you know, payment and French lessons potentially, or, you know, rooms and room and board and flights. What, what's the breakdown of the week?

Thank you.

Okay.

Yeah, of course. So in terms of price, I think that was your first question. Price is €370 for teachings, teachings, practice, and everything. And it's €310 for accommodation and food. Food is great. I mean, that's why I do retreats every, every month there, mostly for the food myself. It's vegetarian, it's really filling also, and it's local. And our chef Antoine is also the owner of the house and he's, well, he's really nice at doing this. Regarding the lesson, so it will be in French, but we will, I think, do French-English because Jonathan can speak French, but mostly I think he will speak English to get faster and I will translate in French. So whenever there will be French speakers, I can also translate in English, or it could depend. I think I will assess that when we have all people registered. I will see if everyone speaks in English, for instance, then we will do English and maybe translate for the few persons who speak only French. That's what I did that for our retreats, like I talked in English. And yeah, and I think you had another question on accommodation. So the house is— it has different rooms, so you share your room with other people. It can be from 3, 4 people to 6 people. And depending on how many people subscribe to the summer camp, we will probably add some other accommodation. So there might be some private rooms, for instance, or we can find this kind of solution for you if you want to. It'll be slightly more expensive, obviously. So that answers your question. And regarding transport, it's like, so you— the way you get to La Roche-Guyon, so you go to Paris first, and then from Paris you have a direct train which is like 35 minutes. And when you reach the station, either you take a cab that you share with other participants, or There are some minibuses that I book for you in advance, and before you come, I give you like all operational information very detailed, so you don't have anything to decide. You just go with with the transport solution.

Yeah.

Okay.

Oh, okay, Christina. I I know exactly what you're talking about now. So arrêt is deposit, and then enseignement is like the Totalité is the full payment.

Yes, yes, yes. Sorry.

And you want deuxième partie is the second payment if you did the arrêt, if you did the deposit.

Exactly. That's it. Marie-Beth, it's not. You can take a train from Gare Saint-Lazare or Montparnasse, but most trains are from Gare Saint-Lazare. Oh yeah, yeah, the website is in French. We are considering doing a page in English as well. So we may do so, but if you have questions before that, Christina, feel free to ask, to send an email, and I'd be happy to answer.

Any other questions?

Feel free to ask any question.

Well, you can always ask after if you have another question. Or Instagram, École Sadhana, or by mail.

You can— I just sent my mail again in the meeting group, so you can have it.

What time do we start each day? At 8 AM. So sometimes I do retreats, we start at 7 when we do like Ashtanga, hardcore Ashtanga. But then people are like, yeah, we like to sleep. And I was like, okay, we start at 8.

Yeah. And it should be a small enough group that any adaptations we need to make, like, should be easy.

It's not going to be huge in terms of people. We're going to be like 20 people max, I think. Yeah, that's it.

Can you hear me?

Yeah, I can.

Okay, great. I was trying to type it, but I'm not a super fast Thanks for unmuting me.

I—

this retreat sounds really fun, and I, I love the idea of coming. I don't speak— I'm virtually no French, like, and, and so my concern is, is whether that would be practical. Like, do you think it could work, and do you think I would be the only non-French speaker there. I'm just trying to get a feel for what that language barrier would be like.

Yeah, one of my best friends is considering coming and she speaks zero French, so we have to at least accommodate her. So we do.

We have one person who subscribed who's from Hong Kong as well, so I think there's going to be a few people who are not French speakers. And we'll accommodate for this. And it's fine, we take a bit more time in the lessons. And I mean, language should not be a barrier. And I'm sure inside the French group, there will be some people speaking English as well. And I can— I mean, the fact that we have Jonathan and I, like, Jonathan can make the bond with people who are English speakers, and I can do the French part, you know. So I think it's fine.

The actual science part is scheduled for 2 hours per session, so I think that gives us a ton of time to just— yeah, it'll be— it won't be like a fast lecture, I don't think. That's not the sense I was getting when we were talking about it.

It's a very slow pace anyway.

And will the scientific part be presented in French?

Both.

Both. If I'm presenting, I have a hard time with the scientific French words because I didn't learn them. So I'll probably favor English. And then when Camille Teste or Alexia Michel are presenting, they will probably present exclusively in French.

But I can, and actually I can discuss that with them because all of them speak English. I mean, Camille speaks perfect English. We spent a few months together in India. Alexia, she spends all her life in India as well. So all these persons are all the All the speakers are English speakers. So I, I think what we try and do is mostly turn it into English and then translate for French people. Sometimes do like a bit of French, mostly.

Yeah.

That's really helpful.

Thank you.

Carla, you should be able to talk now.

Bonjour.

Bonjour.

Je m'appelle Carla. Mon petit parler français. Will study more French as, as we're there. I'm blushing because I haven't practiced very much, but I do have my Duolingo and I do love your language. So this is just an extraordinary opportunity to put many wonderful things together. I've only known Jonathan for a couple of years, but I can highly recommend. And Charlotte, I've had a couple of classes with you.

I know. I remember. I remember you. Yes.

Yes, I do.

I'm trying. My husband is sitting right here with me, and we're thinking of making this our honeymoon that we weren't able to take when we got married. And so he's a former chef, and so of course he is a meat eater. But we were wondering if there was like fish or chicken or something like that that we could request to have for him, or What the story is on that. Maybe he can go to the restaurants or something.

Yeah, because we, our chef is himself a yoga, like he's practicing a lot of yoga. So he's always done only vegetarian. And I think we keep it this way because it's easier. There's a little bit of cheese though, but I mean, it's vegetarian, but yeah, eggs sometimes as well. I mean, there's lots of proteins in terms of like, but we do have good restaurants in the, in the area, in the village. There's the one, Crêperie. One pizzeria. I mean, it's not really French, but and there's like also more old traditional food, French food. And we are really close to Giverny. Giverny, which is really famous for American people. American people love Giverny.

If you check the town Carla, you'll see it's it's there's a lot of stuff.

Yeah, there's a lot of stuff, and I can recommend the good ones as well.

Yeah.

Excellent.

Okay. Well, thank you. We're going to try to put our budgets together, and and we're really hoping to join you.

Thank you so much.

Much for putting all of this together.

That would be amazing. I look forward to it.

Merci beaucoup d'être venu. En plus, en France, c'est un week-end long. C'est le week-end de la Pentecôte. In France, it's a long weekend. So we have tomorrow is off. We have a lot of off days in May in France. We don't work a lot in France. So thank you for making the time to meet us on this Sunday afternoon and. We hope to meet you guys in Rio at some point. Yes. Okay.

Au revoir, everyone.

Bye, guys.