Empowering Mind and Body; Occupational Therapy and Yoga Therapy

02/04/2025

Hello from Empowering Mind and Body's team of certified Yoga Therapists! We provide services in-home and in the community across central and southern Ontario!

Highlights of what we do:
* We customize the tools of yoga to address an individual's unique needs.
* We carefully guide our clients through mindful movement, yoga poses, breathing techniques, meditation and many other tools.
* We use yoga philosophy to facilitate clients to harness their inner resilience.
* We support clients to develop an independent personal practice.
* We work collaboratively with the client's team of healthcare professionals.

Clients report improvements in their physical, physiological and psychological symptoms and wellbeing allowing them to better participate in activities that are most meaningful to them.

Please reach out or check out our website in the comments for more details.

breath. move. meditate.

01/29/2025

Did you know that mindfulness is a fundamental principle of Yoga Therapy?

And did you know this can help people with chronic pain?

Empowering Mind and Body runs an evidence-informed Mindfulness Based Chronic Pain Management Program to do just that.

Good news! Our next session is starting in February.

In 12 weeks, clients will learn how to integrate the principles of mindfulness and meditation safely into their daily lives.

The benefits?

One participant said it best; "This course has taught me that mindfulness can be effective at helping with my moods, outlook, pain, sleeping, and dealing with others."

If you, anyone you know, or have any clients who have chronic pain, and may benefit from this program, check out the flyer and contact us for more details.

https://empoweringmindandbody.com/

08/23/2021

Please register for this virtual talk I am giving Wednesday to learn more about Yoga Therapy and the two weekly virtual Yoga Therapy group classes being offered through BIAYR.

Join us this Wednesday at 1pm for our next Education Talk!

Kristina Borho, Owner of Empowering Mind and Body providing Occupational Therapy and Yoga Therapy services, will provide an overview of the application of Yoga Therapy after a Brain Injury.

Topics will include:
- Symptoms that may result from brain injury
- Tools of Yoga to address symptoms
- Introduction and brief guided practice of breathing, mindful movement and meditation
- Overview of BIAYR Yoga Therapy groups

BIAYR's Yoga Therapy program has been extremely popular, so come this Wednesday to learn more about it and how it can help you in your brain injury recovery!

Register here: https://biayr-education-yoga-therapy.eventbrite.ca

05/27/2021

Please share with anyone you know who is living with the effects of a stroke including caregivers.

Online workshop reviewing adaptations of a Yoga Therapy practice for individuals living with the effects of Stroke.

Thank you to the Brain Injury Association of York Region for hosting this event:

-with Kristina Borho, OT, C-IAYT and Simone Chin, OT, Yoga Therapist

Register here or to learn more about the presenters

https://biayr-workshop-yoga-therapy-stroke-survivors.eventbrite.ca/

Yoga is union of mind, body and breath. Yoga Therapy carefully selects poses, breathing techniques and meditation, and adapts them to the abilities of the participant to address specific areas and promote holistic health and wellbeing. This interactive workshop will start by reviewing physical, cognitive, communication and affective symptoms that can be experienced after a stroke. A brief overview of adaptations that are used for each area will be discussed. Participants will be guided on how to breathe as the foundation of all Yoga practices and then be guided through a gentle therapeutic Yoga practice while being offered on-the-spot adaptations to meet the needs of the participants. The participants will then be guided through a meditation to close the Yoga Therapy Practice. Finally, a discussion will be held regarding the benefits of a regular Yoga Therapy practice for individuals living with the effects of Stroke. This workshop complements the mind-body programming being offered through BIAYR, such as mindfulness meditation and Yoga classes.

Please have a chair available. Additional supports may include a wall and a yoga strap or block but are not required.

Stroke survivors and caregivers welcome.

12/08/2020

Excited to be co-facilitating this 12-week, virtual Mindfulness Based Chronic Pain Management Program in February 2021 with my fellow Yoga Therapist, Nicole Aylwin.

Training was through University of Toronto and the NeuroNova Centre for Mindfulness Studies. It was an excellent course and I’m looking forward to offering it to clients.

If you know someone who might benefit, please contact me.

08/20/2020

Thanks for the shout out BIST! Owner of Empowering Mind and Body, Kristina Borho gathers friends and family every year to be active together while supporting a great cause. Check out their throwback post below! We will be running again this year! Please join us and register!

04/14/2020

Empowering Mind and Body’s Yoga Therapists have been collaborating about our successful transition to supporting our clients through a HIPPA/PIPEDA compliant and secure platform for virtual Yoga Therapy. All of our Therapists are certified with the International Association of Yoga Therapists and have successfully been seeing existing and new referrals for the past few weeks. We have been sending our clients video and auditory recordings of their personal practice to support daily practice. We are being creative around service delivery (sometimes shorter and more frequent session to adapt to our clients’ needs) and client feedback has been positive. We are planning to share more of what we offer to the general public in coming weeks, stay tuned. We have been sending loving kindness to the community at large and wishing all of you to be happy, healthy, safe and peaceful. Everyone has unique circumstances at this time and my team is happy to support you or someone you know to practice Gentle mindful movement, breathing and meditation. Whether it is your first time or you have experience; we customize each session based on the unique needs of the client. Please DM me if you want to know more.

01/09/2020

I am very excited to be apart of the Brain Injury Association of York Region’s initiative to bring more programs to their members. Please see the link attached for Yoga Therapy with Arshad Pathare on select Thursday evenings and with me, Kristina Borho, on select Friday afternoons. Please reach out with any questions.

Yoga, breathing, and meditation provide people with another tool in their toolbox to empower them to take control over their mind and body. It’s about getting out of ‘fight or flight’ mode and finding the calm in the storm 🌦

BIAYR provides free Yoga Therapy sessions for brain injury survivors and caregivers. The first session is this Thursday, January 9 at 5:45pm!

Check out our Events page for all of the dates and times 🗓

https://www.kenoshanews.com/news/local/yoga-and-meditation-enhance-recovery-processes/article_39367e83-a925-5a0f-9b80-5e3d4cee4adb.html

12/19/2019

EMB enjoyed a nice evening at the PIA holiday party last Thursday among friends and colleagues. It is such an honour to work among such knowledgeable and caring people.

Pic 1: 5 Therapists from Empowering Mind and Body; from left to right; Shehla, Sangita, Kristina, Nicole and Simone.

Pic 2: Sade Akande-Jones: Occupational Therapist and Tonya Flaming: Case Manager

Pic 3: Gila Karp: Physiotherapist

06/16/2019

What an honour to represent Yoga Therapy Toronto and accept their Certificate of Accreditation from the International Association of Yoga Therapy (IAYT) on their behalf. The ceremony was held at IAYT’s Symposium on Yoga Therapy and Research this evening in New Port Beach, California. IAYT is ensuring educational standards for Yoga Therapists, supports research, has a code of ethics and has a mission to establish Yoga as a recognized and respected therapy.

Yoga Therapy Toronto, in addition to their dedication to train their students, mentor past students, provide therapy, teach yoga classes and complete their recently published book; “Classical Yoga Asana”; did a lot of work to get this accreditation for their school and their graduates to be recognized. I am grateful for their dedication to passing down the teachings of T. Krishnamacharya and T.K.V. Desikachar so that I can in turn use the teachings of Yoga to empower my clients to work towards healing and wellbeing.

This weekend I dove deeper in my understanding of Yoga Therapy’s role in cancer (diagnosis, treatment, survivorship and end of life), Pain, Vagus Nerve, Insomnia, emotion regulation, cardiovascular health, movement disorders and more. I am looking forward to sharing what I learned through my teachings with clients and future posts.

In this picture is John Kepner, Executive Director of IAYT.

03/13/2019

It’s here! I am very excited to expand my knowledge, inform my practice with my clients and to share Yoga Therapy with the Brain Injury community at large. This is also very special as one of my clients will be by side tomorrow. She is passionate about sharing how Yoga Therapy is helping her in her healing journey after a traumatic brain injury. Com hear what she has to say! (If you are attending; poster 712; March 14th, 3-4pm)

01/13/2019

I am excited to share that I have been accepted to have a poster presentation on Yoga Therapy for Brain Injury at the 13th World Congress on Brain Injury held in Toronto in March. If any of you are going, please stop by my poster to say hello! I’m looking forward to learning more about how to support my clients at this conference.