There are a few things I believe are good for the soul, and are my go to during stressful times, some include –hot chocolate and boba. After my experience, yoga has been added to the list! I am not a flexible person, so I’ve always steered away from trying yoga. However, I found it be very relaxing and rewarding. Whenever I’m feeling stress, I’ll now consider taking a yoga class at Cornell (instead of going to order bubble tea at Kung fu or hot chocolate from CTB lol)!

I might have my own mat, but I have a hard time doing yoga on my own. That’s why I decided to come to the yoga class last week. I had a good time stretching out my body right before finals went into full swing. I liked the variety of the poses shown, there was more than just the standard sun salutation. We completed side twists, something else, etc. The instructor was nice, paced the class at a speed that I could follow, and understood that sometimes a break was necessary, and recommended sitting or child’s pose instead of some of the more difficult poses. It was calming to focus on something other than looming finals. I don’t exercise nearly as much as I would like, but this class has inspired me to take out my mat and use it for its intended purpose rather than for lying down on the floor.

This week I had the opportunity to attend yoga session with yoga instructor Linda. I have to be brutally honest, the day I attended, I was having some major anxiety from stress and events going on around me. I wasn’t even sure if I should attend, because of all the things I had to do. However, the time was so worth it. I have underestimated the power of meditation and physical movement, which I have been ignoring for quite some time. When I was doing yoga, I had had the opportunity to re-route my mind and focus into inner peace, and rather than thinking too much about the chaos going on in my time, I was thinking more about my body’s position and flow, concentrating on the instructor’s voice. The little break given by re-routing of concentration gave me so much breathing room and opportunity to step back for a moment and re-assess my time and schedule. The body and flowing movement of Yoga in physical term gave me such a nice stretch. Before coming down to do yoga, I was working on the desk for more than 5 hr, without a break. The stretching movements and simply just lying down and breathing relieved so much of the physical strain I had on my body. Although the yoga itself was basic in movement, some were very difficult due to how inflexible I was. This was very helpful to me because due to physical activity and strain, I was actually thinking less about the stress and more about my body and how I am doing in yoga.  The whole re-routing Yoga did for me was amazing and I hope that Flora Rose will offer more of these types of activity in the future. I am also planning to do more yoga and meditation in the future, which I know are offered by the PE department.