Yoga in Durham

Hi there! I'm sure you're all feeling the summative season. Thankfully, this time next week we'll all be chilling and trying to forget about the miserable essays we turned in on Friday. Today I'm going to talk about one of my favourite ways to fight stress in these hard times.

What?

Yoga! Hands up who hasn't tried it at least one, perhaps on your bedroom's floor in front of a YouTube tutorial. Whether that one was a success or not, yoga is such an amazing sport with so many benefits. Yoga originally comes from ancient India where it developed around the sixth century BCE. It includes both physical and mental practices that aim at connecting your body and mind to strengthen you in more ways than one.

Why?

Yoga is a great, non-invasive way to stay active. It has more benefits than I can possibly include here, but they comprise for example improved flexibility and posture, stress relief, better sleep, relieved tension, and so on. Basically, that's THE way to clean your mind and strengthen your body. Need I say more?

How?

Source: DUYAPS's Facebook page.

There are many ways to start doing yoga. You can try it on your own, YouTubers offer many videos that will guide you through different yoga flows for all levels of advancement and for different purposes. However, if you'd like more personal guidance and perhaps a group exercise, you can join a yoga class. At our university, we have a society for that! Durham University Yoga and Pilates Society is a big, popular society for those interested in yoga and pilates. They organise classes in both these disciplines, it costs £5 for an annual membership and then £2 for each yoga class/£3 for pilates. That's an amazing value, considering how expensive yoga can get at yoga centres! They also provide you with a mat, so all you need is comfy clothes (as pictured above).

Where, when?

Mostly right here, in our beautiful Students' Union. Pilates is held at Shaping Futures gym. A timetable is released each week, but generally there's a class every day except from Sundays. You can easily incorporate it into your busy schedule.

I've been attending yoga classes for a few months now and I can honestly say that even though I'm one of those unfortunate people who hate exercising with passion, yoga classes are something I always look forward to. Even though a 1.5h class may seem a little long, time goes so quickly once you're there. It isn't at all that difficult, the teacher usually shows a basic version of a given position and then presents some variations of it for those feeling more confident. That's not to say that it's not demanding - you really need to concentrate on the way you do the exercises and it gets quite sweaty sometimes. At the end, there's usually a practice in breathing, which is an amazing way to shut down all the thoughts and stress and connect with your body.

I'd recommend yoga to everyone, seriously, give it a try. Time spent exercising is a time well spent and yoga is a way to stop for a second in the chaos of university life.

Till the next time!

This post is supported by Soap & Glory.