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BIOGRAPHY:
Neil Pearson is a pain care advocate, known for integrating yoga and pain science. He makes complex multifaceted pain physiology discussions engaging and readily applicable to teaching yoga classes. He is an experienced yoga teacher, certified yoga therapist, physical therapist, author, researcher, Clinical Associate Professor at the University of British Columbia, faculty in three IAYT-accredited yoga therapy programs, and board member for International Association of Yoga Therapists (IAYT). He conducts research into the effects of yoga on veterans with chronic pain, and on people with osteoarthritis. Neil is the recipient of awards honouring his work in pain care, pain education and physiotherapy, including the Canadian Physiotherapy 2021 Medal of Distinction.
Neil co-authored the text – Yoga and Science in Pain Care in 2019, authored the patient education ebook, Understand Pain Live Well Again in 2008, and has written many articles on topics related to yoga and chronic pain in publications of the International Association of Yoga Therapists. You can access these and more at https://paincareaware.com/free-resources/ .
Join Neil's sessions to consider questions such "How much pain is okay during asana?", and "If pain isn't an accurate indicator of tissue health, how do we stay safe(r) in asana?"
Neil Pearson, PT, MSc(RHBS), BA-BPHE, C-IAYT, ERYT500
www.paincareaware.com
Notes for People Attending Neil’s Sessions
Neil's sessions integrate yoga and scientific perspectives on pain and pain care. Pain is often a taboo topic. Further, we can make it invisible to others. Similar to health professionals, yoga teachers and yoga therapists receive minimal if any direct education about pain and pain care.
These sessions encourage personal exploration and group discussion of pain, particularly in relation to yoga. Through experiential lecture and embodied experiences there is opportunity to question our beliefs about pain and to use interoceptive practices to reconceptualize the complex human experience we call pain.
Join Neil's sessions to consider questions such "How much pain is okay during asana?", and "If pain isn't an accurate indicator of tissue health, how do we stay safe(r) in asana?"
List of Neil’s Sessions
Title:
what is pain teaching us? perspectives and evidence from science
Type:
[E] Guru Parampara / Inspirations
Level:
All Levels
Length:
1.5 hour(s)
Description:
Neil will share with you what he has learned in his personal journeys with pain, and from the inability of his years of higher education to prepare him to help and understand everything from pain during therapeutic exercise to the burden of persistent pain conditions.
Few of us learn about pain in health care or in yoga, yet people are coming to yoga specifically to help them with pain. It is time that this knowldge is common-place.
Join this session to learn about pain from multiple points of view, explore misconceptions about pain, understand how 'danger signals' travel through and are modified within the nervous systems, and consider options available when there is pain during asana.
Neil has taught this information to people in pain, yoga teachers and health professionals for over two decades. The two most common feedback statements he receives are: "with this information I was able to immediately change how I respond when there is pain during asana", and "now I can see that there is reason to have hope - realistic hope - when pain is persisting".
This session is an experiential lecture integrating what Neil has learned from the experiences of people in pain, integrated with a modern scientific understanding of pain.
Notes:
Join Neil's sessions to consider questions such "How much pain is okay during asana?", and "If pain isn't an accurate indicator of tissue health, how do we stay safe(r) in asana?"
Title:
Type:
[E] Guru Parampara / Inspirations
Level:
All Levels
Length:
1.5 hour(s)
Description:
We all experience pain during asana, even in sukhasana. Yet we rarely take the time to "think about what we think about" pain.
Neil's journey includes knowing that there was more to offer students who experience pain during asana, and more to offer people who come to yoga for answers to their persisting pain. Yoga teachings discuss pain, yet pain attributed to the physical body typically leads to an approach within yoga classes that is more consistent with western medicine than yoga. Through years of personal practice and study, Neil has gained confidence in sharing how he has integrated modern science and yoga teachings in a way that honours the evidence and wisdom we gain from embodied experience, from science, and from yoga teachings and teachers.
Being pain care aware is both a change in our approach to yoga practice and a shift in our language. Join this session for an embodied learning experience of 'pain care aware' language and approach, followed by a discussion that intends to promote wonder and hope. Be guided by language that fosters resilience and bioplasticity. Explore whether your responses to pain support aversion or disconnection. Consider pain and protective mechanisms through interoceptive markers while finding that just right challenge where you can move into your limitations without adverse effects, with greater safety and equanimity.
This session includes an experiential practice followed by facilitated discussion.
Misconceptions about pain are a hindrance to taking advantage of yoga. Learn an evidence-informed perspective of pain and pain care, integrating yoga teachings and science. Take some time to become more discerning about “how much pain is okay during asana?â€
Notes:
Join Neil's session to experience an evidenced-informed and yogic approach to questions such "How much pain is okay during asana?", and "If pain isn't an accurate indicator of tissue health, how do we stay safe(r) in asana?"