Lauren Shepley

Physical Therapist

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Lauren Shepley, PT, DPT,, is a board certified doctor of physical therapy and the founder of Life Cycles Physical Therapy in New Orleans. After graduating from Tulane with a BS in psychology  and Latin American Studies, Lauren completed a yoga teacher training in New Orleans and spent the next 5 years studying and teaching yoga and meditation. The yogic perspective of the body and mind cultivated a deeper interest in anatomy and physiology. Lauren enrolled in LSU’s doctor of physical therapy graduate program where she discovered her passion for women’s health and pelvic floor therapy. Her post graduate pelvic floor practice revealed major gaps in her understanding of key body systems, how they related to each other, and how they were connected to the pelvic health issues she was seeing in the clinic. Working with and in the pelvic bowl using manual muscle release, mindfulness, yoga, and therapeutic exercise felt incomplete, especially the hands on work. She found that when she worked in this part of the body she was guided deeper into parts of the pelvic cavity and abdomen that were unknown to her. She decided she needed to learn more about what was there asking for help. The path was laid for her after experiencing the profound effects of her first abdominal massage with Donna Caire of Regeneration Springs in Abita Springs. She was in Belize soon after in order to study the Argivo Techniques of Maya Abdominal Therapy and began to head into the abdomen. These techniques, like her early work with the pelvis, only led her deeper into the body and stoked a yearning to continue learning in order to refine her palpation skills, enhance her precision in working with specific tissues, and to find new ways to work with the whole body as her hands led her. She began her study of visceral manipulation, neural manipulation, and craniosacral therapy with the International Alliance of Healthcare Educators and has continued to pursue this training since.

Her practice offers a whole-body, integrative approach to treating physical dysfunction. Using traditional pelvic floor therapy, craniosacral therapy, visceral manipulation, neural manipulation, Arvigo abdominal massage, movement, and meditation, evaluation and treatment are based on listening to the tissue of the body in order to determine and address the root cause of dysfunction and enhance the body’s innate healing mechanisms. At the root of her practice is the understanding that the body knows what it needs to heal, recover from injury, build resistance to disease, improve function, and promote wellness.