Hormonal yoga is designed to naturally regulate women’s hormone levels. Anyone who books a course at Deria Frank quickly realizes that the Hamburg native is about more than physical exercises. Women should be allowed to be more women again.
Deria Frank sits cross-legged in her living room and looks into the camera of her laptop. She changes the light in the room a few times, asks the minds in the zoom tiles on the screen if it’s that comfortable. You nod, Deria looks satisfied. She wants everything to be perfect by the time she starts her six-week hormone yoga course.
The lesson begins with an initial relaxation and a mantra sung together – a “sacred verse” that is recited in prayers or during meditations. It is obvious that in this case he is addressing a female goddess. “How well do you know about your cycle?” Deria finally asks. Some women put their thumbs up and nod, others rock their heads from left to right. Most of them are here because they want to learn more about themselves and their cycle. Or because they hope that hormonal yoga can alleviate their symptoms.
Hormonal yoga is also criticized
The technique behind it was developed in the 1990s by the Brazilian psychologist Dinah Rodriguez for women in their menopause who suffered from the effects of natural hormone decline. Rodriguez devised a series of exercises which, according to their idea, should increase the production of female hormones in the respective organs. At that time, she wanted to have proven the effectiveness of her concept in her own studies, but broad-based studies are still lacking. “Dinah Rodriguez bases her whole concept on the fact that she still had high estrogen levels even after the menopause,” explains Christian Albring, President of the Professional Association of Gynecologists and resident gynecologist in Hanover. “She attributed this to her constant yoga practice, but it cannot be verified.” Albring particularly criticizes the fact that Rodriguez’s studies were carried out with only two women. “After a few months, she discovered significant increases in estrogen in these two women. But there was no comparison group, no follow-up study, nothing like that.”
For Albring, there are no hormonal yoga exercises with which a woman could specifically influence the level of her hormones estrogen and progesterone. However, “Yoga, sport and other exercises could reduce the symptoms of hormone deficiency in some women.”
“Take the pill again”
Two years ago, Deria trained as a hatha yoga teacher and then a hormone yoga teacher – for her there is no question that the exercises are effective. “It’s not like we’re looking into a crystal ball or laying cards here. Some hormone yoga courses are even covered by health insurance companies.” The exercises have long been used by women who are either going through menopause or suffering from various effects of hormonal imbalance. This can be an irregular cycle, pain during your period or an unfulfilled desire to have children. Deria herself had severe depressive episodes and pain during her period after she stopped taking the pill. In her mid-twenties she visited several gynecologists and always got the same advice: “Take the pill again.” However, this is increasingly being criticized: Studies have shown that the pill increases the risk of thrombosis, depression and breast cancer. “I couldn’t accept that the pill should be the only remedy.” Deria learned about hormonal yoga and stuck with it. She has been offering her own courses for a year.
“Hormonal yoga can seem a bit strange to you,” she says and also means the women in the group who have been doing yoga for a long time or are yoga teachers themselves. “Don’t worry if you don’t get it right now. Practice will do it.” And she means that literally, because the participants should practice almost every day for the next few months.
In yoga – not only in hormonal yoga – one assumes that the body consists of life energy (prana) that can be directed. This energy should be brought to flow through yoga exercises. The special hormonal yoga exercises, in turn, are supposed to direct the energy to the female organs that produce hormones.
What does it actually mean to be a woman?
“I want to encourage women to look into their own femininity,” Deria says later on a walk through a Hamburg park. She lives in the middle of St. Pauli, wears a vintage leather jacket and sneakers. When she talks about her work, she shines, then her tone changes, her voice becomes happy and the words line up faster. Perhaps also because this joy is still quite new – and was hard fought for. Just a few years ago, Deria was quite a long way from the life she leads today. She studied hotel management and worked in the field, then switched to a large online fashion retailer and worked in e-commerce – until it was no longer possible, until the head and body rebelled. She turned everything inside out, lived abroad for a few months, and finally trained as a hormone yoga teacher.
“We women have learned to adapt”
“To be woman does not mean to dress feminine and to walk fairy-like through the world”, says Deria – and criticizes: “Our society wants to push us into certain forms.” In the world of work in particular, the male principle would still dominate today. She speaks of pressure to perform and competitive behavior – both of which she knows from her previous jobs. “We women have learned to adapt. We wanted to make a career, we copied the characteristics that men have.”
Deria, however, is not interested in women sitting on boards or being taken into account in the language, she wants women to be allowed to be more women again in our society. But what exactly does that mean? “In professional life and at management level, this can mean treating your employees more lovingly and understandingly. This maternal thing in a certain way that you look out for one another without competing with one another.”
In everyday life it is important to see yourself as a cyclical being. “Women are cyclical in nature,” says Deria. “Every month we go through four different phases of our cycle, the production of different hormones in our bodies fluctuates. There are phases when you are more productive, when another half of the brain is working.”
Life according to its own cycle
Two years ago Deria started to adjust her life and her daily routine according to her cycle. “I have marked my cycle phases on my calendar and in the week of my period I don’t do anything that costs a lot of energy.” Would she have met for an interview this week? “Probably not, no,” says Deria with a smile. “Something happens in our body every month that is mentally and physically demanding. You have to create space for yourself. You also plan your private appointments differently.”
The fact that women perceive changes in their mood in the course of their cycle has been scientifically investigated for several decades. “These are often phases of irritability or depression, at the same time with physical symptoms such as breast tenderness, headaches and cravings,” explains Albring. Some women would also report that their libido is particularly strong around ovulation. “It is set up by nature in such a way that fertilization or pregnancy can occur,” he says. Deria also reports of more lust for sex, more self-confidence and energy in this phase of her cycle: “I use that, for example by planning new projects during this time.”
Since living after her cycle, she has finally accepted herself for who she is, says Deria. “I was always criticizing myself before, always had the little critic on my shoulder.” Hormonal yoga should help the course participants to live more according to their needs. “Women should stand up for themselves and for their bodies. You don’t have to feel guilty about being sick when you have menstrual pain. It shouldn’t be uncomfortable to communicate it openly, either.”
For many women who suffer from hormone-related complaints, it is a relief to even understand their own cycle in the first place. “You then recognize phases and patterns, know in which phase of the cycle the pain comes and can adapt to it.”
When the period comes back
At the end of the first hour of hormone yoga, the women’s hair is slightly tousled and their faces look relaxed into the cameras. They learned a lot today about their cycle and the various female hormones, bent their bodies, breathed forcefully, and tried to channel energies. A participant who had had a cyst on her left ovary for several weeks could feel exactly where she was: “That was impressive,” she says, “thanks for that”.
Deria looks satisfied. In a joint chat, she will support the women in the coming weeks between the lessons. Here she will also read about the first successes. “I just got my period for the first time in a year,” wrote one participant after several weeks. Two other women report that their period was painless for the first time in a long time. Albring would clearly deny that these results were solely due to the hormonal yoga exercises. Deria, however, believes in her work – she is already brooding over new ideas to bring more and more women “back into their femininity”.
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Source From: Stern
