Barre with Justine

I feel a little late to the party when it comes to writing about library yoga. Based on a search within the Library, Information Science and Technology Abstracts (LISTA) database, articles on yoga and libraries began appearing in 2007 and this particular wellness offering has been embraced my many libraries, both academic and public. I believe library yoga has become a mainstay in wellness programming because it’s a feel-good program that gives patrons an opportunity to experience the many benefits of yoga practice.

There is storytime yoga for children, chair yoga for older adults, and many other unique yoga offerings, from laughter yoga to yoga for athletes. On the physical level, yoga has many benefits including improvements in flexibility, balance, and strength. In a previous blog post I wrote about the many ways that libraries can provide and promote movement, from treadmill desks to loaning out exercise equipment. Yoga has its own unique benefits that are worth discussing in relation to libraries.

Beyond moving through poses (or asanas), there are many more life-enhancing aspects to yoga. When we consider offering yoga in academic libraries, looking at how it may improve student wellbeing is a great way to make the case. Yoga has the potential to improve the mental, physical and social health of our students, and there is solid research to back this up!

In a 2021 review article on the topic of yoga interventions and mental health benefits, the authors state: ” “yoga practice is seen to increase self-compassion, decrease rumination and improve attention and memory…Evidence consistently shows that yoga decreases physiological markers of stress reactivity including blood pressure, heart rate and inflammatory proteins, while it increases heart rate variability, in diverse populations.” (Pascoe et al. 2885).

Having research that demonstrates how yoga can reduce stress and improve attention and memory makes library yoga an excellent way for libraries to support students in their academic experience. Library yoga can be a way to enhance learning, offer stress relief to students during times like exams, and be a way to build community within the library space.

My good friend Chelsea Humphries has taught yoga for years, including library yoga at several university campuses. Chelsea has also researched, written and presented on the topic. I was so happy she was willing to share her thoughts for this blog post! You can read more about what she’s written on her website, and find her on social at @chelsea.onthebrightside

How did you discover yoga and what has it brought to your life?

I first discovered yoga at the age of 12 in the lunch room of a nearby school, where there
was a city-run yoga class for pre-teens. It was the only class I encountered for quite some time that wasn’t in a studio and that wasn’t for adults. I was a very active child – I enjoyed running and playing sports – but I was also a very anxious child. That yoga class, with its focus on breath and controlled movement, was the first time I found myself able to truly quiet my mind by inhabiting and moving my body. It was the first time I ever really experienced flow. After the classes ended and weren’t renewed by the city, I sought out DVDs and books for home practices through my teens (this was before YouTube!). Then, when I got to university, I joined free yoga classes held on campus in pursuit of that same feeling of quiet and connection with myself.

Practicing with others was a joy; you could feel the energy in the room shift as we moved and
breathed and found ourselves flowing in the present moment together. This was magical.
My yoga practice through my years as a university student helped me to cope with the
stress of adapting to university and academic life. It has provided me with a toolkit of resources I now use to ground myself and approach my everyday life and my work in academia with more self-understanding, compassion, clarity, and focus.

Once I was able to afford a studio-based practice, I pursued my 200-hour yoga teacher
training, and I now practice and teach yoga to others in a variety of settings, including libraries, in the hope that it may offer an accessible and unintimidating introduction to yoga through its physical expression in asana (postures) and pranayama (breathing techniques). My hope is that it will bring a little bit of balance and peace to those who practice with me, uniting the mind and the body in that way I discovered as a pre-teen to find some quiet space within.

What do you think library yoga offers for students? What do you hope they take away with them?

Library yoga offers physical and mental benefits for students. In its simplest interpretation, the practice offers students a study break that gets them moving, stretching out the areas that often get tight and sore when sitting at a desk or hunching over books and laptops for extended periods of time. It is designed to particularly address common concerns like tight shoulders, achy back and tight hips. Calming breathing techniques, and a general focus on the breath may also help to alleviate mental stress and tension, rooting students in the present moment and focusing
and quieting the mind.

Library yoga also offers students an opportunity to come together as people first, and academics second. It is a program that humanizes the academic space of the library and forges a community within it.

How can we make yoga more appealing and accessible to students?

I think offering yoga classes within academic and community spaces, like libraries, can make them more inviting and less intimidating. I have heard it expressed before that students are afraid they aren’t flexible enough or fit enough to attend studio and gym classes (not to mention that there are often associated costs with these spaces!); the library, in contrast, is a welcoming space of discovery and free knowledge/information exchange.

Insofar as the library is an inclusive and yet unconventional space for a yoga practice, I think it is important to offer a similarly inclusive and “unconventional” practice in this space, offering many variations and alternatives that enable students of all abilities, experiences, and in all kinds
of clothing (they might not have time to change into yoga clothes between classes!) to participate in a manner that feels good to them. For me, this has translated into frequently teaching postures that can be simultaneously explored on a mat, in a chair, or standing, and emphasizing that the goal of the postures is the sensation experienced, not achieving any “standard” shape.

This approach also demonstrates ways in which yoga can be incorporated into everyday life; learning how to practice in a chair, for instance, may make a student more aware of their posture and inclined to take small moments for mindful movement when seated at their desk in an extended study session.

Offering bite-sized yoga classes (30 minutes or less – I’ve even experimented with 2
minutes!) both in person and through social media may also be useful for students. With busy schedules, demonstrating small ways in which yoga can be brought into everyday life – even if only by performing a few breathing exercises during high-stress moments – may be more accessible (and more impactful) than asking students to set aside an hour of their time to practice on a mat.

What do you think are some of the challenges students are facing that yoga could help them with?

There can be a lot of physical strain in the student experience. When attending to studies,
students may find themselves sitting for extended periods of time, hunching over books, laptops, and phones — developing tight hips, achy backs, sore shoulders and necks, and tired eyes.

Yoga, as a physical practice, can relieve some of this tightness and tension and improve
awareness of the body. This may translate into students taking more care of their physical selves while immersed in challenging academic work – recognizing when their body is asking them to take a break instead of tuning it out, and making healthy decisions to relieve physical stress.

Yoga can also assist with the mental strain of the student experience. Feelings of overwhelm
in adjusting to university life (especially in the COVID and post-COVID environment) and
uncertainty in navigating academic work and assignments can be acknowledged and even
mitigated by the focusing and quieting of the mind that comes with the flow of breath and
movement in yoga. In an environment that values intense mental productivity, like academia, it’s easy to let thoughts race all the time, flitting from one subject or concern to another. Taking even a few moments to notice where the mind is running off to, and then gently encouraging it to rest in the present moment, without an agenda, can be revolutionary. It can also provide significant
insight; when the chatter of the mind quiets, sometimes, we can hear the current of thought that has been swirling a little bit deeper.

If libraries don’t have a yoga instructor on staff, what are some ways they could still include yoga programming?

Reach out to your community. It’s possible that there is a local instructor or studio currently
looking to expand their network, and asking them if they are interested in running classes at the library lead to a mutually beneficial partnership.

Bringing yoga resources into the library, and displaying them where they can be seen and easily used and borrowed by library users can also go a long way. Consider purchasing some DVDs, books, and mats, and creating a list of recommended YouTube channels and videos for home practice that you can group together in a display.

It may also be fun to host an event for library users in which participants join in a gentle
YouTube yoga class together and then debrief to discuss their experience. It can be really motivating to bring the community together for a practice, even if it is led by a recording!

Thank you so much Chelsea for sharing your expertise!

References

Lenstra, Noah. “Yoga at the Public Library: An Exploratory Survey of Canadian and American Librarians.” Journal of Library Administration, vol. 57, no. 7, Oct. 2017, pp. 758–75.

Pascoe, Michaela C., et al. “Psychobiological Mechanisms Underlying the Mental Health Benefits of Yoga-Based Interventions: a Narrative Review.” Mindfulness, vol. 12, no. 12, 2021, pp. 2877–89