Hope and healing happen at CooperRiis
Opening hearts and minds is what we do at CooperRiis, a residential healing community in the mountains of Western North Carolina for adults living with mental health challenges.Through a personalized approach to treatment that combines trusted clinical therapies, purposeful work and service to the community, education, and holistic health and wellness practices, our residents learn that recovery is possible and achievable.
With a focus of connecting the mind and body through recovery, we invited Mary Kreider, CooperRiis Integrative Health Director, to share three heart-focused relaxation practices for supporting healing and hope.
Heart-Felt Breathing
Here’s an easy three-step approach to ground yourself in positivity and appreciation.
- Focus on the center of the chest, bringing attention to your heart.
- Next, akcknowledge your breath and then guide each inhale and exhale through the chest/heart center.
- Then, as breath starts to flow, recall a positive experience, feeling of appreciation or a time you felt good inside. Now, try to re-experience it. Hold that thought and continue breathing to achieve what we call a “heart feeling.”
Meditation for Love & Kindness
During mindfulness meditation, we often ask residents to set an intention to send love to someone who needs it most. As we send love to others, we feel good inside and achieve a state of loving kindness.
Yoga for Everybody & Every Body
Our teachers build on their experience with Subtle®, Trauma-Informed and Yoga Nidra. This creates accessible, therapeutic and personalized classes to support emotional health and ease anxiety and the effects of trauma. Heart-opening poses like upward facing dog and the wheel are favorites.
Outside Research Supports:
The Mind-Body Connection: Improving Overall Health by The Lindner Center for Hope states,”research supports the role of physical activity in helping manage mental disorders. Active people have been found to be less depressed than inactive ones, and people with chronic depression are more like to go into remission with regular exercise.” Furthermore, to support our exercises offered here, The Lindner Center goes on to state,”Yoga, meditation, and other relaxation strategies have been found to ease stress, depression, and sleep problems. There is growing evidence that the practice of meditation can even slow cognitive decline in older adults.”
Reach out for More Information about our “Mind & Heart” Connection Approach
We’re happy to share more about our Integrative Wellness Program and the role it plays in the CooperRiis approach to mental health recovery. Hope and healing do happen at CooperRiis, and we look forward to connecting with you soon to share more.
