By Faceted Media Staff Writer Caits Fitzpatrick
Starting a business can be extremely stressful in many different ways. You’re responsible for managing a team, designing a strong business model, and hopefully, generating good results.
With all of this pressure, it is crucial to find a way to stay healthy. And for entrepreneurs, yoga is hands down the best option.
1. First of all, it really keeps your body healthy
By now, most people are well aware that yoga is a great form of exercise. It strengthens your core and vastly improves flexibility. Yoga also boosts your immune system and helps you get a better nights sleep. Before you can successfully run a company, you need to take good care of yourself and keep yourself healthy!
2. It keeps your mind as flexible as your body
Running a company, especially a brand-new company, requires being able to think on your feet, basically all of the time. You have to be able to think creatively at the drop of a hat, and yoga can make this much easier. Practicing yoga helps to improve cognitive functions, as well as your memory. These are both necessary to make rational and innovative decisions.
3. Yoga keeps you from stressing out
Yoga has been proven to decrease feelings of anxiety and depression in participants. Entrepreneurs can make better and wiser choices when they’re not constantly weighed down by the stress of a situation. According to Angela Calafiore, founder of Serendipity Yoga in Encinitas, CA, “when your body is at rest and your soul is at peace, you make better decisions.”
4. It creates a calmer work environment
Energy levels will, (and should) still be high around the office, but yoga teaches you to remember to “find your breath.” Taking those extra beats before reacting to a situation can dramatically tone down conflict in a workplace. Less conflict and quicker resolutions is always a good thing.
5. It teaches you to have more respect for yourself, as well as others.
If you’ve ever done yoga, you are probably familiar with the common farewell in most classes: Namaste – “The divine in me bows to the divine in you.” Beyond the beautiful lesson carried in that one word, yoga classes generate an amazing sense of community. Most notably is a class in Los Angeles, which is taught by Vinnie Morelo at Yoga Works. Morelo is a zebra in a herd of horses when it comes his teaching style, which includes playing rock music, running classes of 90 people, and maintaining an open dialogue about his past struggles in life. Many of his students have expressed that normally they are grateful to not know the people in their yoga class, yet after experiencing his style and group, they are thrilled to feel the sense of community he inspires. This level of appreciation and respect for those around you, whether socially or at work, is possibly the most important quality yoga can lend to an entrepreneur.
Business and yoga are a beautiful example of opposites complimenting one another. It’s all about finding balance. Balance in oneself. Balance between your work and your home life. Balance in the office. Yoga is a truly life-changing way to achieve all of that and so much more.