Twenty years ago, when Anna Dunwell was having a difficult time finding books about diversity for her daughter, she did the research and created a distribution company. When the Newton resident wanted to help low-income women improve their health through yoga, she became a certified instructor, applied for a grant, and brought her knowledge to a number of shelters.
Now people are finding Dunwell.
In 2006, Boston Medical Center learned of Dunwell's work and asked her to join a team to study using yoga to reduce lower-back pain for low-income women. If the regimen proved helpful, patients could begin to practice yoga in their homes, cost-free. The study, which was headed by a Newton resident, Dr. Robert Saper, finished in January and was a success.
Saper, the director of integrative medicine in the family medicine department at Boston University, had been awarded a grant from the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, a division of the National Institutes of Health, to develop clinical research skills in alternative medicine.
The protocol for the study was designed by a group of experts, including some from the Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health in the Berkshires. Dunwell both led and assisted two groups of 30 students over a 5 1/2-month period. The yoga program incorporated traditional and modified postures to help alleviate lower-back pain. Dunwell guided and encouraged the women to progress from the basic to more complex poses.
The Triangle, for example, where one hand is generally flat on the floor or on an elevated block, was tailored into the Wall Triangle, which provided a gentler stretch by having the women slowly slide one hand down a wall.
"Anna brings a passion and enthusiasm to her work," said Saper. "She's interested in helping [students] overcome whatever barriers and obstacles they feel they have to, in order to practice yoga."
Saper said that he was immediately taken by Dunwell's demeanor and her experience working with people who are less advantaged. He met Dunwell through Maya Breuer, who worked on the protocol and is the founder of the Yoga Retreat for Women of Color, a program that began in Western Massachusetts and is now offered nationally.
"Anna was always interested in connecting body, mind, and spirit," said Breuer. "She has a real connection and capability teaching people from all cultures."
Dunwell is teaching yoga to Boston Medical Center staff and physician-referred patients. Her own training has included work in meditation, theoretical and applied yogic philosophy, anatomy and physiology, communication methodology, teaching practicum, and professional ethics and practices.
Last month, Dunwell was awarded a grant from the Kripalu Center to teach yoga to women who have recently been diagnosed with breast cancer. The course will be held at Boston Medical Center.
"The intention is for this to become an ongoing program," said Dunwell. If all goes well, she will begin teaching classes in the fall.
Dunwell says learning to breathe properly is a huge part of restoring equilibrium.
"When someone has a crisis in their life, they breathe differently," she said. "Learning proper techniques is a tool that can be accessed immediately, whenever fears about the trauma or triggering events emerge."
Last summer, Dunwell began working with breast-cancer survivors, encouraging them to understand the grieving process that accompanies the discovery of an illness, or facing a trauma. "Generally people don't want to linger in their grief," said Dunwell. "They want to hurry up and get over it."
She became interested in working with breast-cancer survivors after spending time with a woman who had five recurrences over a five-year period, the mother of her daughter's fiance. "I had the opportunity to go food shopping for her and pick her up after a treatment one afternoon," said Dunwell. "When I drove her home, she asked me to pray with her."
Dunwell said the woman questioned whether she could live through the ordeal. "I took her hands, and could feel the terror in her body," said Dunwell. "When I left, I kept thinking about how awful it was that she's had to endure" the remissions and recurrences over the past five years.
What stayed with Dunwell, she said, was the terror that she felt in her friend's body. It was then that she decided to create a grief protocol to begin healing. She will base her lessons on Kripalu yoga, which she said has an organized structure that includes meditation, a centering introduction, a check-in to see what parts of the body need particular nurturing, and an intention, in which inspirational stories or poems are read aloud.
In addition to her work at Boston Medical Center, Dunwell has built a yoga studio in her home to accommodate private clients - not only women who have recently been diagnosed with breast cancer, but breast-cancer survivors, people suffering from posttraumatic stress, refugees who have encountered abuse, and victims of domestic violence. She will work with up to three people at a time.
"I believe that small is beautiful," said Dunwell.
For more on Anna Dunwell, visit annadunwell.com.
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