How it started
The history of the MediYoga method began in 1998 when a yoga teacher was teaching yoga at Sweden’s first scientific medical study of yoga for chronic back pain at Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm. During the course of the study what would become Startpacket 3 was created. Almost 10 years later, in 2007, Elisabeth Engqvist wre having lunch with that yoga teacher, Göran Boll, talking about not turning yoga instructors into yoga therapists, but instead make yoga instructors of medical personnel. That day started what would prove to be a very successful partnership.
It was initially called just Medicinsk Yoga (Medical Yoga), but as success arrived, other actors also started to offer medical yoga and it was time to protect the concept under a registered trademark and in 2010 the name changed to MediYoga.
Because of its cost-effective and beneficial effects, good safety record, and over a decade of evidence-based Swedish research, MediYoga is becoming increasingly popular worldwide. It has been integrated into clinical treatment programs at more than 350 hospitals and other healthcare facilities throughout Scandinavia.
The big breakthrough came in 2011 when cardiac nurse Maria Wahlström (then Nilsson) conducted a published study of MediYoga and its positive effects on heart attack patients at Danderyd Hospital in Stockholm.
Important ingredients in our success are our focus on healthcare and our research-based marketing.
Without Elisabeth and Göran´s partnership, MediYoga would not exist today.
In 2016 the collaboration between MediYoga International and MediYoga Sweden ended when Göran left MediYoga and sold his company MediYoga Sweden. Today they are two entirely separate companies with distinct structures, content and visions.
And our journey continues …