Donna Karan Begins Yoga, Meditation Program at UCLA Hospital

Patients and staff at will be the first on the west coast to receive training in a blend of Eastern and Western therapies designed by yoga instructors and fashion designer Donna Karan.

Urban Zen Foundation, started by Karan, is taking up residency at UCLA to ease the minds and bodies of cancer patients and their caretakers. It is the first hospital on the west coast to adopt the program, which involves training in yoga, Reiki, meditation, aromatherapy and other practices. Karan was at UCLA Thursday to visit with patients and staff.

"People think yoga is kind of putting your legs around your head," Karan said. "Yoga is being. Yoga is being present in your mind and body. Through meditation, yoga and all the practices, it really puts the patient, the loved one, the doctor and the nurse at ease because, as we all know, being in a hospital is not exactly a place that you sign up to on vacation."

Thirty doctors, nurses, social workers and other hospital staff at UCLA participated in the first round of training. More than 200 hospital employees have expressed interest in the next round of training, said yoga instructor Colleen Saidman.

Involving patients and their caretakers was one of the program's main goals, Karan said.

"It could not be just people coming in and...doing good," Karan said. "What we wanted to do was take care of the whole aspect of the hospital."

If we don't take care of ourselves, we can't take care of anybody, we can't do anything, and as I keep on saying, we are in a world of chaos right now," Karan said.

Karan, who said she has practiced yoga since she was 18, was inspired to start advocating for meditation and yoga in hospitals while her husband was suffering from lung cancer. She and yoga instructors Rodney Yee and Colleen Saidman visited with cancer patients

"We're distilling some very important methodologies in which to really take care of the symptoms of panic and we've been doing this research now, really, all our lives, but now we get to work hand in hand with the hospitals, to really bring it to where it's most needed," Yee said.

Ernesto Vargas, a liver transplant patient, said he now experiences less back pain and better sleep after learning from Urban Zen.

"When you've been in bed for a week or more, your spinal cord ...hurts," Vargas said, who attended the event surrounded by his family. "My back feels better. I can even move it by myself. I've experienced more of that and the way I breathed changed everything."

Karan and Dr. David Feinberg, president of UCLA Health System, hope having Urban Zen at UCLA will persuade other hospitals to adopt the program. Karan hopes it will be a trendsetter.

"I hate to say this, like, you're wearing something -- 'oh, where did you get that? I want it!'" Karan said.

UCLA has several other programs that integrate Eastern practices into Western medicine, including the UCLA Center for East-West Medicine, and the Mindful Awareness Research Center.