War Related Illness and Injury Study Center
Integrative Health & Wellness
Integrative Health and Wellness
The WRIISC Integrative Health and Wellness (IHW) Program combines wellness and holistic practices such as nutrition, yoga, mindfulness meditation, and health and wellness coaching into traditional western medicine approaches to health care to improve Veterans' health and quality of life. Integrative programs focus on the whole person and emphasize strong, collaborative partnerships between health care providers and patients. These research-based approaches are growing as valuable components of comprehensive treatment plans for Veterans with chronic health conditions including, but not limited to, pain, sleep disturbances, anxiety, depression, irritable bowel syndrome, and fatigue.
WRIISC Integrative Health and Wellness Programs
WRIISC currently offers 7 weekly online yoga classes through VA Video Connect open to all VA-enrolled veterans with a referral from their VA clinician. VA clinicians can refer their patients to this class with a consult request to WRIISC Yoga Wellness for veterans local to Palo Alto VA, or an IFC WRIISC Yoga Wellness for national veterans (indicating "for yoga" in the comments). The classes are appropriate for Veterans of all fitness levels.
Veterans who participate in yoga classes at the WRIISC are periodically asked to complete a program evaluation questionnaire. The table below provides a summary of the most common symptoms endorsed by Veterans attending WRIISC yoga classes and the percentage of those who had "Some" or "Complete" improvement in those symptoms.
Learn more about our online yoga classes, including the class schedule and the referral process, on our Veteran Education Class page.
WRIISC offers a weekly yoga nidra meditation class and monthly mindfulness meditation classes by phone to all VA-enrolled Veterans regardless of location or geographic location. Yoga nidra is a spoken word guided meditation that promotes a sense of deep calm while enhancing awareness. Mindfulness meditation encourages the cultivation of awareness, compassion, and acceptance.
When practiced regularly, yoga nidra meditation and mindfulness meditation can help reduce stress, ease pain, improve sleep and provide the practitioner with a sense of calm and well-being.
Learn more about our meditation classes, including how to join, on our Veteran Education Class page.
Health coaching encourages behavior and lifestyle changes to reverse or reduce the impact of chronic illness and increase wellness. The health coaching approach aims to inspire and advocate, and operates in the framework of growth and development. Health coaches work with you to create a vision and develop a personalized health plan around the focus areas that matter most to you. You will engage in a process of self-discovery, set long-term goals, and take action steps to create well-being. Health coaching is available to Veterans seen in WRIISC clinical programs. For more information about the referral process to the WRIISC clinical program, and the opportunity for health coaching, please see WRIISC Referral Process.
WRIISC created a web-based toolkit for learning about wellness practices and Integrative Medicine tools for Veterans. The toolkit features Veterans describing their experiences of how Integrative Medicine tools and techniques may help. Click here to view the STAR Well-Kit.
Research plays an important role in improving the health and lives of all Veterans by examining innovative treatments and practices designed to improve the health and lives of deployed Veterans. WRIISC is actively involved in research on integrative health and wellness approaches. Visit our research page to learn more about the research being conducted at the WRIISC.
