The Health Benefits of Yoga with Sara Lewis

In this episode of The Dr. Hedberg Show, I interview Sara Lewis in a discussion about the health benefits of yoga.
If you struggle with pain, fatigue, depression, anxiety, insomnia, gut issues, or have adverse childhood experiences, this is one episode you should really listen to.

Sara spent 25 years providing program management expertise to international public health projects in South America, Eastern Europe, Africa and South Asia.  The work included directing, managing and planning projects in maternal, newborn, child health and nutrition.  After her career in public health, Sara began a second career as a Holistic Health Coach and Yoga Instructor.  As a Health Coach, she helps clients discover the benefits of using food as medicine and making small lifestyle changes that have big impacts.  She has been practicing yoga for over 15 years and teaching since 2014.  Her passion for cooking and food led her to yoga when she began studying the connection between mindfulness and stress eating.  Sara teaches both vinyasa flow and yin/restorative classes.  Her yin classes include pranayama (breath work) and deep relaxation.  When she's not on the mat or working with clients, Sara can be found in the kitchen fermenting foods, experimenting with locally sourced ingredients from the farmers market or out exploring the hills of Western NC on a bicycle.

Dr. Hedberg: Well, welcome everyone to "The Dr. Hedberg Show." This is Dr. Hedberg and I'm excited today to have my good friend and colleague Sara Lewis on and we're gonna be talking about yoga. So I've known Sara for quite a while and she's actually my yoga teacher and she's also a health coach. So Sara, welcome to the show.

Sara: Thank you Dr. Hedberg, great to be here.

Dr. Hedberg: So why don't we just start off by you filling everyone in on your background and what you do and what you've been working on lately?

Sara: Sure. So I had a career in international public health for about 25 years and I traveled all over the world. I was in Latin America, South Asia, Eastern Europe, and Africa. And I worked mostly in maternal/child healthcare and nutrition and it was a very gratifying career, but at the same time, it was very stressful with all that travel. And so I looked for support from the health coach and I got so much from my health coach that I decided to become one myself. And one of the healing modes that my health coach suggested was to increase my yoga practice and that led me to become a yoga instructor in addition to the health coaching.

So now I have a business called Simply Sara Wellness and Yoga, and I teach about six classes a week at the Waynesville, North Carolina Yoga Center and I provide health coaching to individuals and group clients. So sometimes people will say to me, "Well, what is health coaching?" Health coaching is similar to a personal trainer, but I focus on food and nutrition and lifestyle. So if you came to me and you said, "Sara, I need help with insomnia or my IBS, or I want to prevent type two diabetes because it runs in my family," then I would work with you to create short-term and long-term goals and I would support you and I would challenge you. I'd probably gave you some homework. I'd wanna know about your life's ambitions and your fears. I'd probably ask you what you had to eat today. But health coaching is much bigger than food and nutrition. It's about finding balance in your life and feeling your best.

Dr. Hedberg: Excellent. So I've been doing yoga for many years. It's been very beneficial. Some of our listeners are probably already doing yoga or have done it so far. And even those who have been doing it, they might not really know the background of it. So for those who have never done it before and don't really know about it, can you just kind of break down the basics of yoga and where it comes from?

Sara: Sure. So the word "yoga" is an ancient Sanskrit language word and it means "yoke" or "union.