Yoganna Come Outdoors?!
It’s well known that spending time outdoors in nature is beneficial to both our mental and physical wellbeing. Mind, the mental health charity, outlines that being in nature can improve your mood, reduce feelings of stress or anger, help you to feel relaxed and improve your confidence and self-esteem. It’s a good job really, given how much time we’ve all spent in our gardens and exploring our local area in the last year!
But what about adding in the benefits of yoga to your time outdoors too? Yoga comes with a whole host of health benefits, including improving physical strength, stamina and flexibility, but also those relating to your mental wellbeing – increased relaxation, better sleep, helping to manage stress to name but a few. So, what happens when you combine the benefits of being in nature with the benefits of doing yoga?! It’s the double-whammy! There’s something truly magical about practising yoga in the great outdoors, feeling the sun on your face (hopefully!), with the background noise of birds chirping away. We’ve even had a little Robin try and join in one of our sessions! Practising outside seems to heighten your senses – breathing is such a huge part of yoga and breathing fresh air outside really heightens your awareness of your breath. Yoga outdoors leaves you feeling stronger and calmer, as all yoga classes should, but also feeling invigorated and energised and sometimes a bit proud to have got up and out to do yoga outside on a chilly morning!
I’ve also noticed that the children’s yoga classes seem so much more calm outside – whether that’s because children love being outside and feel less contained than indoors, or whether the parents are more relaxed because it’s less noisy and pressured. Who knows, but I LOVE teaching outdoors and really do hope that even beyond Covid restrictions we continue to do as much yoga outside as possible!
So, why not come along and try it out? I’m running regular classes for adults and children in the valley – wherever possible these will be outside. I also run ad-hoc weekend outdoor yoga sessions, often with a coffee, chat and treat afterwards – truly the perfect way to start the day!