What is Cystic Fibrosis?
Cystic Fibrosis (CF) is a chronic and life threatening genetic disease that impacts the respiratory and digestive systems, requiring a grueling daily care regimen to combat fatal lung infections. Exercise, including yoga, is one of the leading methods of proactively managing CF due to its natural airway clearance, reducing reliance on antibiotics that bacteria become resistant to over time.
Approximately 30,000 people in the United States live with this complex progressive disease. About half of them are under the age of 18.
Benefits of Yoga for CF
Yoga is a uniquely valuable tool for managing the physical and mental symptoms of CF. A regular yoga practice can improve breath control and lung function, increase mind-body awareness, and give patients the ability to self-monitor changes in the body… potentially providing early warning of life-threatening lung infections.
Yoga has numerous benefits to people with CF, and their support network:
The greater CF Community has begun to discover that yoga is a uniquely valuable tool for managing CF due to its focus on unity of body, mind, and spirit. Yoga achieves this by increasing body awareness, forming positive mental habits, and creating an empowering sense of self. Our teachers have personally witnessed this in their own lives, and scientific pilot studies have shown positive results.
As such, we believe that yoga classes should be freely accessible to every member of the greater CF Community who wants to learn. We aim to remove obstacles to access, including cost, bacterial exposure, and lack of motivation.
Our teachers have specialized knowledge that is valuable to our CF Community, and our class content is intended to support the diverse needs and abilities within that community. We believe that everyone who wants to participate should be able to find a class, or be offered a modification, that allows them to participate and be fully present “in the moment” during class.
Being “in the moment” is key to our physical, mental, and spiritual well-being. Our livestreaming class format facilitates being present in the moment, as well as building community through active engagement with each other.
CF Yogi is a safe space for participants to let go of judgment, expectation, and competition, and simply be present in the knowledge that they are already everything they need to be.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is CF Yogi?
Who is CF Yogi for?
How does it work?
Weekly yoga classes are livestreamed via an online conferencing platform, and led by instructors within the greater CF community who have specialized knowledge of yoga for CF and its value as a proactive, self-empowering tool for living with Cystic Fibrosis. Classes are recorded to professional standards, and feedback is gathered regularly to determine which classes, instructors, and methods are best meeting the needs and interests of the CF community.
How much will it cost?
Our livestreamed classes will be FREE to anyone in the CF community who wants to participate. Our program is funded through grants, sponsorships, and individual donations. Yoga students who are financially able to contribute to help us grow our programs will be welcome to donate here. (As a fiscally-sponsored project of Social Good Fund, your donations to CF Yogi are tax-deductible.)
Why are you doing this?
Who is running CF Yogi?
CF Yogi is a not-for-profit program born out of Katie Malik and Myra Giaffoglione’s shared experience with yoga as a powerful tool for improving mind-body wellness and quality of life, and their mutual belief that yoga can provide unique benefits to the CF Community. CF Yogi is co-managed by Katie and Myra, with financial support from the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation’s innovative Impact Grants program that has now extended into a Community Support grant for ongoing support.
CF Yogi is a fiscally-sponsored program of Social Good Fund. As a 501c3 nonprofit, donations made to Social Good Fund on behalf of CF Yogi are tax-deductible, and are earmarked specifically for this project.
Interested in partnering with us?
We’re always happy to meet sponsors, donors, and industry partners who are interested in helping us to serve the CF community.