In an effort to help students alleviate the stress of schoolwork and upcoming finals, the University of Mississippi Campus Recreation hosted a free Sunset Yoga class on April 22 for students to ease their minds.
The class was instructed by Mary Hazel Bellan, a junior biochemistry major who has been teaching yoga classes at the South Campus Recreation Center for the last two semesters.
“I started getting into yoga in high school during COVID-19, and I have just been keeping up with it ever since,” Bellan said. “It was just something fun to do and an easy way to work out, and then I started to really get into it.”
Sydney Rott, a South Campus Recreation Center employee pursuing a masters degree in exercise science, also helped facilitate the event.
“We did a class like this during COVID-19 because we were trying to incorporate more things to do outside, but we wanted to bring it back and thought this time of year with the warmer weather was the perfect time to do it,” Rott said.
The class had a turnout of 30 students, which was the maximum number for class slots offered. The class attendees ranged from those new to the yoga practice to students who are regulars in Bellan’s class.
Cindy Pan, a graduate student working towards her Ph.D. in business administration, attended with her friend and fellow graduate student pursuing a Ph.D. in business administration, Aisha Ghimire.
“We have been going to Mary Hazel’s class every Monday, and so we were pretty excited about this since it was something fun and different,” Pan said.
Ghimire said that she hopes the South Rec continues to host fitness classes outdoors.
“We love coming just to be able to relax our mind,” Ghimire said. “I hope that they do more of these classes outside.”
Mary Morgan-Bryan, owner of Baptiste Power Yoga in Oxford, said yoga is an effective mental health booster.
“Anxiety, stress and depression are very common reasons I hear people seek out the practice of yoga,” Morgan-Bryan said. “Breath during yoga is intentional and slowed down, and while controlling the breath, the practitioner can shift from the sympathetic nervous system (fight or flight) to the parasympathetic nervous system, which is calming and restorative.”
Many students are drawn to yoga because of the calming effects, according to Morgan-Bryan.
“Yoga is a form of mind-body fitness that involves a combination of physical movement and mindful focus on awareness of the self, the breath and energy,” said Morgan-Bryan. “Researchers are only beginning to understand how yoga promotes health and well-being.”
Bellan said there is another aspect that many people do not think about initially when yoga comes to mind.
“In general, yoga is known to be good to calm the mind and body, but I think specifically the group fitness aspect is extra fun for the community and connection aspect,” Bellan said.
Keely May is a senior public policy leadership major who has just recently started practicing yoga, and she echoed what Bellan said.
“Yoga brings such a sense of community that I was not expecting when I started,” May said. “I have started to become friends and make connections with so many people that I never would have met, and it overall just feels like a close-knit community that is so accepting.”
After the success of this event, the campus rec center is hoping to continue to add more sunset yoga classes open to all students.
“It would be nice to do some in the fall when it is still warm next semester, and we definitely want to continue them in the spring, too,” Rott said
