Coming from an Indian family, yoga has always been something that has been around me. All my relatives partake in yoga on a fairly consistent basis and recently, many of my friends have as well. However, I was always skeptical of the benefits of yoga and thought it didn’t have any real significant intrinsic benefits. Nevertheless, I decided to come to the event regardless just to try it again and see if there would be any difference. Given that prelims were approaching I was naturally feeling a little stressed but after doing yoga for an hour, I felt more relaxed and rejuvenated. For the rest of the day, I was able to work more efficiently rather than normally getting distracted. Since then, I have made a conscious effort to take a small amount of time in the morning and do a little bit of yoga. Doing so has lowered my stress and I feel refreshed both physically and mentally each day.
Category Archives: 4/November/2017 – Yoga at Rose
The Benefits of Yoga
I don’t normally do yoga, and I’ve only done yoga a couple times before partaking in this event, but I had heard so much about the benefits of yoga. My parents, who grew up in India and regularly did yoga, and my friends back home who go to Corepower every week all frequently urged me to do yoga, so I decided to try it out. And it was awesome. The actual experience of doing yoga was painful and difficult. I’m not flexible, so doing every pose- from the warrior positions to the lotus position, was extremely painful. But by the end of the event, when I was doing the Shavasana pose, I felt very calm. My mind was still and at peace and I felt the benefits of yoga that all my friends had told me about.
Such a calming experience prompted me to look into why yoga was so beneficial to so many people. In sanskrit, yoga means “union”. This helped me make sense of why yoga was such a calming experience. Lots of times when I study, I feel very restless. My mind and my body are in two different places, and that makes it a lot harder to study. My head and my body are in two different places, and it makes me much less calm and my mind much more chaotic. However, through yoga I felt much different. Yoga forced me to do difficult poses that strained my body and had me focus on my breath while doing each pose. Through doing this, it helped establish a union between my body and mind, which was why I felt so calm.
Relaxing Through Yoga
I had the opportunity to attend a Yoga session on this Saturday. I have always wanted to try yoga, seeing other people enjoying the relaxation and inner peace it brings them. I thought it would be a nice break and relaxation from the hustle and bustle of being a student at Cornell. The Yoga certainly helped me relax and just take a much needed break. We did different stretches and poses including the downward dog. As someone who usually enjoys higher intensity workouts, yoga was a pleasant surprise. We focused on our breathing as we held different stances, instead of constantly moving. I think it’s very important to take some time out of our busy schedules to relax and take a break and yoga definitely helped me achieve that. Our instructor was also very knowledgeable and helped us correct our stances and taught us the correct form. After this class, I am definitely open to doing yoga more often as a way to loosen up and destress.
Yoga, a Perfect Way to Start the Day
With prelims on my mind and accounting homework due by midnight, I chose to start my Saturday morning doing Vinyasa yoga with Meagan. During this one-hour session, Meaghan taught us how to ignore all the stresses we’re facing and focus only on ourselves. From the warrior position to the mountain stance, I learned the steps of Vinyasa yoga. I think it was especially helpful that I started my day off with this mental exercise. On a usual day, I hop out of my bed, get ready for class, and start the day with a cup of coffee. On Saturday, Vinyasa yoga gave me the rush of energy that my cup of coffee usually gives me.
At Cornell, academics and internship recruitment sometimes take a toll on our mental health. I believe that Vinyasa yoga should be a way students can distance themselves from the stress of the semester. While the gym strengthens our physical health, yoga is an activity that maintains our mental health. Considering this, I believe activities like Vinyasa yoga should be practiced more often by students at Cornell. I appreciate Meagan taking the time to walk around and critique each of our forms so that we made the most of this session. I truly enjoyed the experience and would highly consider doing it again in the future.
Rest and Relaxation through Yoga
This past weekend I had the opportunity to go to a yoga session. The instructor led us through a Vinyasa flow sequence and we did a variety of poses that help with stress relief. During prelim season, it was a really nice way to begin my Saturday which I normally devote to studying by taking time to purposely relax. The deep breathing helped calm me down and feel better overall and allowed me to not have to focus on prelims, projects, and papers for a little bit. The stretching was also helpful after carrying around my backpack all week and stressing about work, it was great to be able to release some of the tension in my body. The music the instructor used had lots of supportive mantras in it like “I am perfect the way I am” which I thought was a nice way to bring good thoughts into the experience and also added to the positive experience.
Couldn’t relax
Last Saturday, I attended the first Yoga at Rose event and to be honest, I was disappointed. This was my first actual yoga class. I think the only other time I sort of did yoga was a ten minute mindfulness session in my high school gym where we were stretching and breathing along with random teachers. I thought that was more relaxing.
Perhaps I was too in my head for a lot of it, but I didn’t feel the relaxing benefits people usually think about when it comes to yoga. It wasn’t that I was distracted by my typical worries about school and life. My thoughts were just not as free as I thought they would be.
I wanted to relax, but something about the class and atmosphere was somehow unsettling to me. Perhaps it was the speed of some of the motions. I didn’t feel like I was extending or stretching some parts of my body fully when doing them and it felt rushed, which definitely didn’t help my mind relax. I wasn’t feeling the warrior poses, which seem kind of quintessential yoga, and I don’t think technically my alignment was off, but the instep of one of my feet got progressively sorer throughout the motions.
Perhaps the most distracting thing was what the instructor kept saying during the whole session. At one point, she said something about astrology – I can’t even remember what she said about it – the mention of the word astrology was shocking itself. Eagle pose supposedly helps clear out the lymph nodes. Every single thing we did was qualified as good stress relief. The music sounded kind of campy. The constant sounds from the dining hall and people looking in and making comments was also distracting.
I don’t know what exactly it was, but I didn’t leave feeling any more relaxed. At the beginning, I truly had the best intentions of spending part of my Saturday settling into my body and centering myself, but I just couldn’t relax in that space. I wish I had a better experience with the yoga class. In terms of relaxation, this is something I probably won’t be doing again soon.
Yoga at Rose
As someone who has never gone to a yoga class, the prospect of doing yoga at Rose was a little daunting. I don’t consider myself flexible at all, and memories of trying to do yoga through the Wii Fit when I was around ten years old kept flashing back. Although I’ve always known that yoga is a good way to get exercise into my week, it has never appealed to me enough to actually attempt a class. So I decided that I was going to the yoga event to check it out and get any doubts that I had out of my head.
Granted, my lack of flexibility did come into play in the session, but it wasn’t the big deal that I had made it out to be in my head. I might have not been able to do some of the poses as well as others, but I got there eventually. It was surprisingly relaxing to go through the motions, and I enjoyed it far more than I thought I would.
I came out of the class feeling refreshed and actually ready to start my day. I think it would be nice to try yoga out another time, and maybe even incorporate it into my weekly routine. I came out of this event having much more positive feelings about yoga, and I hope to feel the same way with even more of the future events.
Rest and Relaxation in a High Stress Environment
This weekend, I had the pleasure of attending a yoga class brought to Rose House for the day. Throughout the class, the instructor repeatedly reminded us, “don’t forget to breathe!” It struck me how apt that statement was, not just in the context of yoga, but in my daily life at Cornell. Often it is so easy to begin drowning in work that we forget to take time for ourselves, come to the surface, and breathe. In doing so, we “hold our breaths” in a way that simply makes our responsibilities more asphyxiating. However, being given the opportunity to step away from my responsibilities for about an hour and relax, listening to my body instead of my mind (and my planner) was incredibly valuable. Afterward, I felt energized and much less stressed out than usual. It was as if I could feel the stress physically leaving my body throughout the session (which is aim of mindfulness and yoga, I suppose), leaving me at a much more healthy stress level when the session concluded.
Yoga for the soul
This was the first time I’ve ever done any yoga — and it was great! The instructor was so patient and helpful. She told us to listen to our bodies and no to do anything uncomfortable. Some poses my body did not like, but I did them anyways because I wanted to try it. I’m glad I didn’t choose to sleep in on a precious Saturday to go to yoga. I’ve been so stressed lately and honestly, while doing yoga I felt so relaxed. At the end when we were in the resting pose, I nearly fell asleep (I actually might have). She also gave us tips on how we could relieve stress on our own with simple yoga poses. Even if these do not count as rose scholar events anymore, I will probably sign up again if time permits! I even bought a yoga mat recently because of how inspired I was.