Originally published October 5 2005
Inmates will try yoga for its stress management benefits
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
At the Allegheny County Jail, volunteers have begun teaching yoga classes to female prisoners, with the expectation that the stress-relieving technique will help ease tensions and better prepare prisoners to escape drug addiction.
On the gym floor before them, women in T-shirts and stretch pants were sitting cross-legged, rhythmically blowing hard puffs of air out of one nostril.
But by the end of the 11/2-hour lesson, the gym floor was packed with inmates dressed in bright red jumpers lifting their palms to the sky in the palm tree pose or stretching their spine in the cobra pose.
The class was a test run to help jail officials decide whether to let a group of local yoga instructors teach inmates the ancient art.
The group is offering to volunteer each week at the jail because they say yoga offers a variety of health and mental benefits that could help with issues like addictions.
"If you can teach somebody tools for stress management, they can take those tools with them where ever they go," said volunteer yoga instructor Carol McClenahan, who is also a stress management teacher for the Dr. Dean Ornish program at Allegheny General Hospital.
It will be a few weeks before they decide to keep the program, but Warden Ramon Rustin said from what he has heard and seen, it looks promising.
The idea started a year ago, when recognized yoga expert Suraj Karan Jindel wanted to share some of the success he has had teaching inmates at Jaipur Central Jail, a maximum-security facility in India, with a local jail here, where his son lives.
It finally came together a few weeks ago when Jindel and some instructors pitched the idea to the warden.
Inmate Program Administrator Jack Pischke said he believes teaching yoga will help ease the tension and stress among inmates, especially now that the holidays are approaching, and help with drug and alcohol addictions.
At the yoga class, the inmates were put off at first by the strange movements and breathing.
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