The Mental Benefits of Yoga

It’s a stressful time to be alive. “We have so much going on in our heads all the time, and so you really have to kind of erase a little bit of that.”  For Mary Carvalho, practicing yoga at the Healthy Life Center Coconut Point helps her relax and unwind. “It’s trying to keep your mind focused and mindfulness.”

Instructor Kristen Catrabone preaches the mind/body connection to her students. “Allowing yourself to just be still, connect to your breath, feel your heartbeat, and just stay with your own being for 5 minutes, 10 minutes, allows that stress to melt away.”

It can help participants become more in tune with their body. “Really what this practice creates is awareness. Awareness of your breath, awareness of your body, awareness of sensations in your body,” said Catrabone.

Practicing yoga can help people gain confidence as they improve their strength, flexibility, and balance. “These things we practice, body scanning, and sensory mapping of being able to feel our feet on the earth, make sure we have equal weight on all four corners of our feet, doing balancing poses to help us with our strength and flexibility,” said Catrabone.

“Yoga is one of the best things I could recommend to anybody,” said Carvalho. You can find the full class schedule by visiting leehealth.org/events.



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Lee Health in Fort Myers, FL is the largest network of health care facilities in Southwest Florida and is highly respected for its expertise, innovation and quality of care. For more than 100 years, we’ve been providing our community with personalized preventative health services and primary care to highly specialized care services and robotic assisted surgeries. Lee Health - Caring People. Inspiring Care.


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