"Yoga: Good for Business"

Yoga is catching on at corporations. A recent article in Yoga Journal magazine reports that Nike, HBO, Forbes, and Apple all offer on-site yoga classes for their employees. These and scores more Fortune 500 companies consider yoga important enough to offer classes as a regular employee benefit. At HBO in New York, employee health and fitness director Bill Boyle can't keep pace with the demand for yoga classes. He recently added a third class to the weekly schedule and would add more if he had room. Boyle attributes the boom in yoga at HBO to rising levels of workplace stress. "Everybody is under more stress now, and has to perform better, and work more hours per day. Yoga gives them a chance to take it all in stride." Boyle is convinced that the investment HBO is making to subsidize yoga classes for employees is well worth it. "The deep breathing and relaxation employees get from yoga help them to be more focused and less anxious. When they go back to work, they're in a position to make better decisions. You don't want people making business decisions when they're stressed."

 

The benefits of yoga for co- workers is less often touted as a prime benefit, yet recently when I asked a class of returning students why they chose to continue, one young professional woman reported that her staff asked her to because “whatever that yoga class is doing for you, please continue doing it.”

Even if your workplace does not offer yoga on-site, the benefits of taking a yoga class can impact your workday- and every other hour of your life. Of the many people who show up at my free introductory classes, a large percentage rank stress relief as a primary reason for trying yoga. They have heard that yoga teaches you how to relax. The other common reasons for trying yoga include flexibility, strength, better balance and the ability to concentrate.

So what is yoga and why is so effective? Yoga has developed in India over the past five thousand years as part of traditional Ayurvedic healthcare. The primary difference between Ayurvedic and conventional Western medical healthcare is the proactive nature of yoga. Waiting until medical care is needed is like waiting for your car to break down on the highway before checking the oil. Rather than taking action only when there is a health problem, a regular yoga practice generates vitality on an ongoing basis. Health is not merely the absence of disease, but rather the presence of vitality, vigor, energy, and enjoyment.
The main component of a typical yoga class is working with the yoga postures. By performing the different types of postures, which include standing, sitting, twists, backbends, forward bends and inversions, the body is stretched and toned. Each joint and limb is moved through its natural range of motion. Muscles are strengthened. Equally important is the stretching of the fascia, the connective tissue that binds and protects the muscles and internal organs. When the fascia is not stretched regularly it shrinks and becomes dry, harder and less elastic. This is what you feel when your body tightens up and feels like a strait jacket. It feels good to stretch back out to the comfortable limits of the fascia. It feels like there is more room to breathe because there is more room to breathe. Awareness of breath is another important aspect of yoga practice that is particularly effective at stress reduction. You cannot be aware of your breath as it is occurring and be overwhelmed or consumed by rage or anxiety at the same time. How you respond to a given situation becomes a choice rather than a reaction.

         Interest in yoga endures much longer than with other exercise ‘fads’ because yoga is much more than physical exercise, although yoga can be as physically challenging as any workout. As part of the vast system of Ayurveda, which includes diet, lifestyle and meditation practices, yoga addresses the entire human being- physical, emotional, mental and spiritual. A healthy, happy and whole person is more productive, more effective and makes better decisions. That’s just good business sense.

-Joseph Roberson