Yoga

Staff have access to free yoga classes which are held twice a week.

These lunch time sessions are a great way to incorporate wellbeing into the working day. Due to the current circumstances, yoga classes are held via Zoom to ensure that they are accessible whether working on or off campus.

Join Grace, our qualified yoga instructor and move the body, stretch and release tension and clear and steady the mind. The classes are suitable for all levels and no experience necessary.

Time

Tuesday 12.15pm – 1pm

Password

Password: CWyoga2020

Who should do yoga and why

Yoga is for everyone! Size and fitness levels do not matter because there are modifications for everyone, using props where needed. The idea is to explore your limits and gradually move through them. It is a great way to get in tune with your body and your inner self. Yoga can be anything you want it to be; dynamic, restorative, rejuvenating, strengthening and/or relaxing.

Physical Benefits

Some of the physical benefits could include increased flexibility, increased muscle strength and tone, improved respiration, energy and vitality, maintaining a balanced metabolism, weight reduction, cardio and circulatory health, improved athletic performance, protection from injury, longevity, protection from disease. Yoga can also lower blood pressure and reduce insomnia.

Mental Benefits

One of the key benefits of yoga is how it helps a person manage stress. Stress can reveal itself in many ways, including back or neck pain, sleeping problems, headaches, drug/alcohol abuse, and an inability to concentrate. Yoga can be very effective in providing coping skills and reaching a positive outlook on life.

Breathing and Meditation can help improve a person’s mental well-being. Regular yoga practice relaxes the mind, creates mental clarity and calmness, centres attention, increases body awareness, relieves chronic stress patterns and sharpens concentration.

Meet the trainer

I’m a Senior Yoga Alliance Teacher, fully insured, with over 18 years of teaching experience. I’m a registered RELAX AND RENEW® LEVEL 1 Restorative yoga teacher and a Yoga for Stress and Burnout specialist teacher, most recently trained as a Positive Psychology Practitioner for professional development and personal wellbeing.

I teach weekly Vinyasa Flow Yoga classes which are intelligent, thoughtfully sequenced movements with mindful breathing helping to release patterns of tension held in the body and understand the importance of the body-mind connection to mental wellbeing. My teaching is founded on the philosophy of the yoga tradition, but with the modern approach of Positive Psychology of evidence-based self-help tools raising your level of happiness, meaning and satisfaction in life.  Instead of the more traditional ‘disease approach’ of focusing on the problem, Positive Psychology concentrates on a  person’s strengths, optimism and resilience.

Grace Bowker