Yoga is a great way to reduce stress! In this article, Stephanie Pope Caffey, co-owner of Bikram Yoga East Harlem, explains how yoga can reduce stress. She also shares easy ways for you to use the practice.

Q: Why is your Bikram yoga class good for relieving stress ?

A: It's good for stress relief from the very beginning of the class. The first thing we do in a class is a breathing exercise called Pranayama, which helps you control your breath. It calms down the central nervous system. This exercise just melts away the tension of jobs, kids, or any stressful situation of the day. Throughout the postures, you calm down and relax because oxygen is flowing. When we're not breathing and have no oxygen flowing throughout our body, the body gets really tense and tight. Once the oxygen starts to flow, everything starts to relax, and you're ready to receive all the other benefits that the class offers.

Q: What's an easy relaxation technique that people can do at home?

A: You can do the Savasana pose, which is also known as the dead body or corpse pose. To do this, you lay on your back with your eyes open or closed and focus on your breathing for five minutes or so. We tend to multitask a million things with "to do" lists a mile long and we rarely take the time to focus on our breathing and take long, slow, deep breaths-in and out through the nose. While lying down still in Savasana pose, you are able to let go of everything you have to do, breathe, and relax.
Bikram Yoga East Harlem is located at 4 E. 116th Street between 5th and Madison Avenues (on the 2nd and 3rd floors). Visit the studio's website, for class schedules and more information about Bikram yoga!

Harlem Word is a series of interviews with Harlem health experts, written by HHPC and reviewed by our Health Advisory Board.

Click the links below to read more from Stephanie Pope Caffey:

• Try yoga Harlem
• The creator of Bikram Yoga
• What is Bikram Yoga
• How she became a yoga instructor