The Mind/Body Studio by BodyBusiness provides our members with a quiet oasis to enjoy an array of non-traditional classes. BodyBusiness offers its members unlimited access to Mind/Body classes for the price of one class at a private studio.

The Mind/Body Studio offers 27 classes each week including: Pilates, Yoga, Nia, Ballet Buns, Belly Dancing and Stretch and Relaxation. Our professional instructors provide a unique opportunity for our members to experience a wide variety of non-traditional classes that focus on emotional well-being in addition to physical improvement.

Yoga -
Why do Yoga?
   by Jeanne Wheat

There's a short answer and a long answer to that question. The short answer is that yoga makes you feel better. Practicing the postures, breathing exercises and meditation makes you healthier in body, mind and spirit. Yoga lets you tune in, chill out, shape up - all at the same time.

For many people, that's enough of an answer. But there's more if you're interested.

For starters, yoga is good for what ails you. Specifically, research shows that yoga helps manage or control anxiety, arthritis, asthma, back pain, blood pressure, carpal tunnel syndrome, chronic fatigue, depression, diabetes, epilepsy, headaches, heart disease, multiple sclerosis, stress and other conditions and diseases. What's more, yoga:

     - Improves muscle tone, flexibility, strength and stamina
     - Reduces stress and tension
     - Boosts self esteem
     - Improves concentration and creativity
     - Reduces body fat
     - Improves circulation
     - Stimulates the immune system
     - Creates sense of well being and calm.

And that's just the surface stuff. In fact, most of the benefits mentioned about are secondary to yoga's original purpose. Developed in India, yoga is a spiritual practice that has been evolving for the last 5,000 years or so. The original yogis were reacting, in part, to India's ancient Vedic religion, which emphasized rituals. So they developed yoga

Yoga mean's "union" in Sanskrit, the classical language of India. According to the yogis, true happiness, liberation and enlightenment comes from union with the divine consciousness known as Brahman, or with Atman, the transcendent Self. The various yoga practices are a methodology for reaching that goal.

If you do yoga will you become enlightened? Well you might, but then again you might not. But it doesn't really matter because yoga is a process, and there's a lot of good to be had along the way. What if you don't believe in talk about enlightenment, spirit and the rest of it? That's okay, too. Yoga doesn't discriminate. Even if you don't believe in the spiritual side of life, you can still do yoga. Whether enlightenment, nadis, prana and Kundalini is literal truth, metaphor or myth is irrelevant. If you do yoga, chances are that you will feel its psycho-physiological effects.

Moreover, the concept of union has a powerful down-to-Earth meaning. Yoga helps us get in touch with our true selves. Between work, home and all of the demands and stresses in between, it's easy to lose touch with who we are, that core essence with which we were born. Rushing around all day, it sometimes feels like the "I" inside is simply the result of the things we do all day - or the effects those things have on our minds, bodies, and spirits.

Yoga gives us control of ourselves. It helps cut through the layers of mis-identities that arise in response to our actions, experiences and feelings. It calms the frenzy, clears the clutter and allows us to get back in touch with ourselves.

However, yoga is not about self-absorption. Yoga is about being in the world. Although most books, videos and websites focus on yoga postures, breathing and meditation, the tradition also emphasizes love, compassion, knowledge and right action as paths toward union. Whether you pursue yoga as a spiritual path or for its psycho-physiological benefits, yoga is a methodology for developing a deeper experience of your self and the world.

And it makes you feel really good.

For more information about The Studio, please contact Member Services at 459-9424 or infoanderson@bodybusiness.com.