Urban Zen

Urban Zen
A complimentary treatment taking place in Rodney Yee and Colleen Saidman's Yoga Studio in Sag Harbor, NY.
8/12/2009
Updated:
10/1/2015

<a><img src="https://www.theepochtimes.com/assets/uploads/2015/09/Urban_zen.jpg" alt="A complimentary treatment taking place in Rodney Yee and Colleen Saidman's Yoga Studio in Sag Harbor, NY." title="A complimentary treatment taking place in Rodney Yee and Colleen Saidman's Yoga Studio in Sag Harbor, NY." width="320" class="size-medium wp-image-1826796"/></a>
A complimentary treatment taking place in Rodney Yee and Colleen Saidman's Yoga Studio in Sag Harbor, NY.
“Do you want to get a treatment?” a man wearing an Urban Zen Integrative Therapy Program t-shirt asked me as I peaked into Colleen Saidman and Rodney Yee’s yoga studio in Sag Harbor. The orange and golden room was filled with people lying down in various “restorative” poses while being surrounded with the energy of yoga therapists and the scents of sweet smelling oils.

The yoga therapists were actually students of the Urban Zen Integrative Therapist Program. They are being trained to provide integrative therapies into a variety of health care settings. Rodney Yee, Colleen Saidman, and Donna Karen developed the program after discussing the missing piece in our health care over dinner.

“We were sitting around at the dinner table and Donna [Karen] was talking about how it took so many to treat her husband while he was ill. Rodney and I suggested, ‘why not put all the healers under one umbrella,’” Colleen Saidman tells us.
 “And so we held a ten day initiative at Donna’s late husband’s sculpture studio, bringing in all the movers and shakers in the wellness community. The teacher training started that week, training 70 teachers every morning and evening. It’s been an intense couple of years.”

Saidman continued to describe how the program trains the therapists to treat patients’ pain, anxiety, nausea, insomnia, and constipation (which is referred to as P.A.N.I.C).

Currently the pilot program is being held in Beth Israel’s head, neck, and throat cancer ward.

Twenty-two therapists are being trained in yoga, breath awareness, meditation, in bed movement, aromatherapy, and nutrition that is good for pain relief an to help educate patients on what to eat to prevent constipation and to provide preventative health care. They are required to fulfill 100 clinical rotation hours in ER settings and bed care. They are also trained in completive care to handle death and dying.

Saidman described how Rodney Yee made a video of in bed movements that will be aired on the patients’ televisions. The therapists will also teach them breath awareness and meditation. When the patients return home, they will be given an MP3 player with guided meditations on it.

“We hope that this service will mean patient hospital stays are shorter and medication less and overall experience better and actually provide an opportunity to be able to take one’s wellness into one’s hand,” concludes Saidman.

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