Feeling stressed? Take a yoga session Power Nap
Diffused lavender essential oils. Dimmed lights. The soft sounds of nature.
While such a feast for your senses might sound like a great way to spend a relaxing evening, it’s actually a form of yoga that involves being encased in a silk sling suspended from the ceiling.
A typical PowerNap session involves 15 minutes of gentle yoga stretches, followed by 45 minutes of deep meditation while cocooned in the hammock-like sling.
“I enjoy the calmness,” said Niagara Falls resident Stacee Barfoot, after completing a PowerNap class at GoFitness Niagara.
“It relaxes your mind. It’s a nice decompressor.”
Yoga instructor Angela Theuerle said PowerNap classes are designed to “bring calmness to your lifestyle.”
“It gives people an opportunity to disconnect from the outer world and come to their inner being and connect with their breathing and their thoughts,” said Theurele, who also offers a similar class at a yoga studio in St. Catharines.
And, while the focus is deep meditation, Theuerle said it’s not unusual for clients to actually fall asleep in the gently-swinging hammocks.
GoFitness Niagara owner Josh Green decided to add the gravitydefying yoga classes as a way to offer balance to clients.
“I wanted something that would complement the rest of our programs and this was a really nice balance to the higher intensity exercises that we do.”
Green said the classes appeal to people of all ages and ability.
“It’s great for anyone who has a stressful job, anyone who is super busy and has no time for themselves, anyone who battles depression or anxiety,” he said. “It’s a really good way to centre yourself and to block out the rest of the world and just relax.”
PowerNap is a variation on antigravity or aerial Vinyasa Flow yoga, which the Thorold Stone Road gym in Niagara Falls plans to offer this spring.
“With anti-gravity yoga, we do full upside down inversion,” Theuerle explained. “Picture a bat hanging from a ceiling or a possum hanging from a tree.”
Theuerle said the spinal decompression that results from hanging upside down has a wide variety of therapeutic benefits including improving the circulatory, respiratory and digestive systems.
For more information, visit www.gofitnessniagara.com.