UW-Madison senior Brooke Alexejun was a swimmer and cross-country skier. When she thinks exercise, she thinks swimming 200 laps in an Olympic-size pool or skiing 15 kilometers a day through rough terrain. When a friend of hers suggested yoga as a way to get in shape, she started to laugh.
“I thought it might be a good way to relax, but I really didn’t think it could have any real physical benefits,” she said.
After her fourth session, with sore abs, legs and arms, Alexejun said yoga was really getting the best of her; resulting in a fun yet challenging workout.
“The workout you get with yoga is so different than going to the gym,” said UW senior Kate Donahue. “When you leave, you feel mentally as well as physically refreshed.”
Yoga has received a lot of publicity and has grown enormously in popularity with people of all ages in the past decade, due to its reputation for making a positive impact on the lives of young and old. T’ai Chi, an Asian exercise based on similar themes, is growing in popularity as well. The benefits of both exercises include increased relaxation, reduced toxins in the body and increased strength and agility.
“One of my students is studying to be a lawyer, and she said that she was worried about classes being cancelled during her exam week,” said Carla Raushenbush, director of The Perfect Knot Yoga Center. “It meant that much to her to have this in her life to relieve stress.”
Alexejun said she agrees.
“Yoga has helped me relax in a way that significantly reduced my anxiety and makes it easier to concentrate on many things, including schoolwork,” she said.
Yoga, a systematic performing of postures called asanas, is a form of exercise requiring both mind and body to work together to strengthen every part of the body. Hatha yoga, the type Raushenbush teaches at The Perfect Knot, is a form of yoga including the physical body in the path to spiritualization.
“The mind and body are intimately connected, and both can harbor tensions or knots,” Raushenbush said. “The aim of asanas is to release these knots or blockages, allowing the free flow of prana, the vital life force, throughout the body,”
T’ai Chi also emphasizes moving the body in natural ways to loosen the muscles. However, rather than poses, T’ai Chi is a dance of continuous, smooth motions based on martial arts movements. Walking, lifting, pulling and pushing are just a few of the actions performed in T’ai Chi.
One of the benefits of these exercises is the relaxation quality. Students who are naturally prone to anxiety and depression because of intense workloads find solace in these types of exercises.
“The problem I often see with college students is their inability to relax in the present moment,” says Tricia Yu, director of the T’ai Chi Center in Madison. “To remedy this anxiety, a sitting meditation is especially beneficial; it focuses on the present and using the mind and body together to find relaxation.”
Yoga and T’ai Chi also release toxins from the body through active blood circulation, increasing both strength and energy.
“Poses that involve curling up and bending actually give the organs a massage that forces blood to these areas, which carries away waste and reduces sluggishness,” Raushenbush said.
Waste and toxins can also be dismissed via the skin, which is what the heated yoga room promotes. The heat also helps muscles stretch more easily.
“To bend iron, you must heat it up first,” said Raushenbush.
Another benefit that is especially attractive to a student population is increased strength and muscle tone.
“T’ai Chi is referred to by one expert as ‘the most powerful weight-bearing exercise known to man,'” says Yu. “The more you bend your knees while you do T’ai Chi movements, the more pounds per pressure you lift.”
Yu said T’ai Chi can have lifelong benefits because it can lead to greater ability to focus and helps people feel young. Yu has been practicing this technique daily for over 30 years and has remained in nearly the same physical condition, without significant weight fluxes, since she began.
Yoga also shares these benefits, since it does not focus on one specific area, but is consistently strengthening all muscles in different ways. The poses emphasize use of the muscles in ways you would not normally train them in a typical gym workout.
“I’ve lost seven pounds since I began doing yoga a couple months ago,” said Andrea Miller, a new mother. “It worked much better than dieting, and I feel more relaxed as well.”
Yu encourages students not to stop another exercise routine they are currently using when they begin T’ai Chi. Ample exercise is accumulated from its practice, but Yu said in most cases any exercise is good exercise. She suggests adding T’ai Chi because, like yoga, it connects both mind and spirit.
The development of one-point concentration, deep conscious breathing and internal focus helps quiet the mind and encourages personal reflection in both yoga and T’ai Chi.
“Yoga does not require any beliefs, nor the limitations and expectations they impose,” Raushenbush said. “But it can build mental power and adaptability for the activities of our lives.”
