Here's why yoga should be part of any corporate wellness program in Singapore.
Yoga is becoming a popular activity in employee welfare programs in Singapore. While lagging behind favourites such as Zumba and boot camp workouts, yoga is a great way for any company to build & nurture workplace relationships.
More importantly, it’s a way for the company to show that they care about the employees’ welfare, and the benefits from this are numerous.
Here are 5 reasons why yoga should be part of any corporate wellness program in Singapore.
1. Yoga Gives Energy to the Body
Your staff are already running, swimming, hitting the gum, or Zumba-ing it out. They feel exhausted after all that intense activity.
Give them a jolt of energy with a yoga session! You’ve seen people relaxed and calm after a yoga session, but you’ve never seen them exhausted, right?
Through active stretching and mindful breathing, muscles are able to release all the tension that they have absorbed from the intense activity they’ve been put through. Once the tightness is released, muscles feel more supple, flexible, and relaxed, which in turn makes the body feel more energetic.
Honestly, yoga complements all types of fitness activity, and should be an essential part of cooling down or balancing out all the active workouts.
2. Yoga Builds Strength—Physical & Mental
Some of the most active bodies are unable to hold their own bodyweight—tell them to hold a Downward Facing Dog aka Adho Mukha Shvanasana for 30-seconds, and watch them struggle. You can see the defeat in their eyes when they realise that despite all their cardiovascular strength and lean muscle mass, they lack physical strength.
The beauty of yoga is that it is a full body workout, without someone being aware of it. Many poses require a strong core, which is essentially all the parts of the body. We are talking about building strength in the back & front torso, arms, wrists, gluteus, hamstrings, calves, and toes.
A plus side of gaining physical strength is gaining mental fortitude—the pride a person has in their fitness transformation will translate to a renewed sense of confidence. This provides them with mental acuity to perform tasks more efficiently.
3. Yoga Fosters Team Spirit
When colleagues go through yoga classes together, they immediately find something in common to chat about as they now have a shared experience.
What makes yoga different is that it is not a competitive sport—yoga is about self development. Thus, while they may be taking the same class at the same time, each person’s journey is different and worth sharing.
Their shared commonality of self discovery and change will create strong bonds among teams at the workplace.
4. Yoga Increase Focus & Productivitiy
By bringing awareness to the breath throughout class, yoga helps prevent a person's mind from wandering by always bringing his or her focus back to one thing.
With regular practice, a person will find that they can easily slip into a focused state, even when they're off the mat. This becomes useful when dealing with important projects at work.
Having a focused approach to work tasks also increases productivity. Being able to focus on the task at hand enables the worker to quickly complete the job.
5. Yoga Reduces Staff Absences & Medical Expenses
The most common complain of office workers in Singapore is feeling stress. Research has shown that stress is a contributing mental, emotional, and physical cause of many sickness and illnesses.
Besides stress relief, yoga has the ability of bringing on a feeling of calm and peace. This is a result of the breathing techniques taught during class.
By combining breath with movement, yoga creates a moving meditation that the physical body understands, which helps in relieving feelings of anxiety, frustration, fear, and stress.
When this happens, your employees will fall sick less and company medical expenses will be reduced.
CONSIDERING YOGA FOR A CORPORATE WELLNESS PROGRAM?
The Yoga Agency has yoga instructors who have experience teaching corporate classes and events at tertiary institutions, financial institutions, commercial properties, and corporate settings. Contact us now http://www.theyogaagency.com/contact.htm for packages and pricing.
