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Integrative Lifestyle Medicine Certifications

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Living Well Institute has, for over 2 decades, focused on providing evidence-based continuing education to PT’s, OT’s, and similar healthcare providers in integrative therapies.

If you are a PT, OT, or similar provider, we fully prepare you to use Integrative Therapies, specifically Yoga, Mindfulness, Functional, in practice and health promotion.

Including integrative therapies is no longer optional, it’s requisite, to impact pain and epidemic levels of chronic pain and noncommunicable chronic disease and musculoskeletal dysfunction.

Coupled with sedentary lifestyle and rising rates of obesity – we have a global, urgent need for Integrative Therapies.

Most healthcare dollars are spent on lifestyle-driven disease, but very LITTLE care delivered today focuses on changing lifestyle habits, which means the overwhelming majority of people who come into your office will have one or more lifestyle-driven diseases that will directly and negatively impact your outcomes in therapy – and that have never been addressed by a healthcare provider before.

LWI offers comprehensive certification programs and specialty courses to meet your educational needs and help fill the gap between the biomedical training you received and the holistic, biopsychosocial, person-first care that is necessary to tackle chronic and complex cases.

Learn more about how Integrative & Lifestyle Medicine can change your practice and how you treat your patients.

How do I get Certified & What is the Cost?

For the Integrative Lifestyle Medicine (ILM) Certification (24 hours total):

  • You will study Lifestyle & Functional Medicine and its 5 vital signs in depth, as well as cover how to implement them through the integrative lens of Medical Therapeutic Yoga, making it an operational, best evidence informed biopsychosocial model of person-centered, trauma-informed, psychologically-informed care.

To earn both the Professional Yoga Therapist & ILM Certification:

For a free webinar on this training, click here

Cost is included in the links.

Do I qualify for certification?

A minimum of 60 semester hours of college credit and corresponding degree from an accredited university or college in a field of medicine or healthcare. You must hold a license to practice in the state of your respective medical field. Medicine, mental health, physiology, or rehabilitation are all degrees and licenses commonly held by applicants, but the vast majority of our students are PT, OT, or ATC’s. If you do not have a healthcare provider license but you have a degree that allows you to work directly with licensed healthcare providers, and you are looking to apply Yoga and Lifestyle Medicine in your work as a yoga teacher, then you may qualify for the Professional Yoga Therapist Associate (PYTA) program. Contact our office directly for more information about this program.

What are the graduation requirements?
  • ILM Certification – pass 6 tests at each of the 6 modules
  • Professional Yoga Therapist Certification – ILM Certification PLUS
    • Level I Certification – Level I Course, pass mid-term exam and case study
    • Level II Certification  – Level II Course, essay assignment, and case study
    • Level III Certification – Level III Course, pass exit exam, complete journal log and CCC (Case Community Competency) project
What other Integrative & Lifestyle Medicine continuing education courses and classes are available?
What is the difference in training between a yoga teacher (i.e. RYT) and a Professional Yoga Therapist?
  • What we do in Medical Therapeutic Yoga and what yoga teachers do are like apples and oranges. There is no direct comparison. However, here is a short overview of the background training it takes to qualify as a Professional Yoga Therapist.
  • First, counting hours does not constitute qualification or safety. Measurable competencies can assure a basic level of competence, however.
  • Bachelor’s Degree in a relevant field. 4 years of preparatory work, typically in a scientific field plus taking pre-med prerequisites. There are the basic requirements:
    • 1 semester Anatomy & Physiology 
    • 1 semester Developmental Psychology
    • 1 semester Research Methods/Statistics
    • 1 semester Sports Psychology (for some)
    • 2 semesters Chemistry/Organic Chemistry – which helps us understand biochemical processes that drive injury risk, growth, and repair 
    • 2 semesters Physics – which helps us understand movement vectors
    • 1 semester Nutrition (for some) 
  • Master’s or Doctorate (the new minimum for PT) Degree in PT, OT, or AT, which are considered professional fields that are experts in human movement, physiology, and rehabilitation  
  • Add – years and thousands of hours of direct patient experience and care, developing trust and therapeutic landscape, differential diagnosis, and prescription of lifestyle intervention 
  • PLUS – residency, clinical rotation, and any fellowships completed 
  • PLUS – all post-professional continuing education, which brings us to the PYT training 

Now add to that the PYT Certification, which requires:

  • Medical Therapeutic Yoga training – 2-4 years time to complete 
  • Over 12 case studies to complete in a peer reviewed setting
  • 3 oral practicals to pass
  • 2 exams, each which require 2-3 hours to complete 
  • 3 levels of training and over 1200 pages of course manual to master, with over 1200 references that have been vetted (and it continues to grow) to support your yoga therapy practice
  • 112 hours of direct classroom time
  • Required peer reviewed articles to vet
  • Post-professional medical yoga instruction delivered at a doctoral level 
  • A community project, the CCC – which is like a thesis project that is karma yoga based
  • PLUS, earning continuing education requirements to maintain your license annually on top of the training 

Lastly, there are Third Party Board Oversight and Competencies Measured

  • 3rd party oversight to assure competencies are being measured and the information being taught and presented is best evidence informed (state board of PT and national board of OT, we’ve also been approved in nursing, medicine, and athletic training) 
  • Hundreds of licensed doctors and therapists currently practicing MTY worldwide via the PYT Certification – they work in settings from ICU bedside care to yoga studios, providing best evidence yoga teaching and therapy through the lens of their medical specialty 
  • Our trained therapists, doctors, and nurses go on to use yoga as medicine from the bedside to the boardroom – from hospital care to corporate wellness. We use it in the context and scope of our license, making it very different, but complementary to, how yoga teachers or yoga therapists would use yoga.
Looking to earn free tuition or create additional revenue for your healthcare facility? Host an Integrative Lifestyle Medicine course.
  • Even though our courses are now online, you can still host one of our courses for healthcare providers.
  • We have guidelines for universities, hospitals systems, and clinics who would like to host a course and two models for generating revenue, which include free tuition or profit sharing.
  • Courses available to host include:
    • Introduction to Medical Therapeutic Yoga
    • Introduction to Integrative & Lifestyle Medicine in Practice
    • Hip Labrum Differential Diagnosis & Integrative Management
    • Prenatal Integrative & Lifestyle Medicine
    • Postpartum Integrative & Lifestyle Medicine
    • All courses teach meditation and mindful movement, as well as Lifestyle Medicine-driven management, through the Integrative lens of Yoga.
  • Course length can be customized to fit your facility needs, but typically range from 1-2 hour lectures to 1-2 days (8-16 hours) in length.
  • Courses can be virtual or in-person. Currently with COVID, all courses are virtual or can be satellite courses. Contact our office to inquire about Hosting a Course.

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