You know the feeling: It’s a typical weekday morning. You settle in at your desk to get cracking on the many emails that flood your inbox. Or maybe instead of settling in at your desk, you are busy running around the office, running around town or in meeting after meeting with little time to stretch. By the afternoon, you’re tired, lacking focus and motivation.

Sound familiar? Not to the employees at Second Harvest Heartland. Thanks to their wellness committee and One Yoga’s outreach program, nonprofit workplaces are able to offer affordable, weekly, on-site yoga classes for employees!  Angela Vincent currently teaches for a similar partnership at Project for Pride in Living, which offers yoga as a health benefit to their employees and volunteers.

 “I have a lot of problems with my neck,” says Lisa, a Second Harvest Heartland employee, “and I have found that the stretching that we do in yoga really helps, and my neck feels much better after the class.” In addition to physical benefits, several studies show the cognitive benefits of yoga and meditation in the workplace. In a 2010 study of mindfulness-based meditation, psychologists noted that participants who had trained in meditation for less than a week for only 20 minutes a day demonstrated a significant improvement in their cognitive skills (including their ability to concentrate) and performed better than the participants who did not receive training. A 2009 pilot study at Ohio State University also suggests that even in small amounts workplace meditation and yoga can reduce feelings of stress and increase sleep quality in office workers.

Each week, One Yoga instructor Shira Charis and twenty staff members at Second Harvest Heartland transform their conference room, pull out mats and dim the lights to set up the space for on-site yoga. Classes take place during the employees’ lunch break so that it requires no extra time commitment. For staff, the space is a welcome breather from the hectic work week.

As Patricia, a Second Harvest Heartland yoga student, explains, “At first I wasn’t sure how I would feel about changing my clothes and then changing back again, but the hour of relaxation and escape is totally worth it. It is so nice to have a lunch period that provides an escape like that.”

Jealous? You can have it, too! Talk to your supervisor, human resources department, or wellness committee and request yoga at your workplace. As an added bonus, revenue from One Yoga’s workplace yoga classes help to support our community outreach fund, making yoga accessible to even more people!