The day is over, and you didn’t have time to make it to yoga. Maybe you’re a busy parent who has a hard time setting aside “me” time. Maybe you have a demanding job, and the idea of lunchtime yoga is preposterous. Well, that doesn’t mean you missed your chance to unroll your mat.
Ompractice offers several classes in the evening hours meant to cater to people who aren’t able to carve out that early-morning or post-work trip to the yoga studio, but still want to practice.
“In our often busy lives, we need to practice yoga whenever we are able to,” says Kaity Holsapple, who teaches the Evening Unwind class for Ompractice on Wednesdays at 9 p.m. “Rather than filling our rest periods with cell phone use, television, or emotional eating, yoga allows us to decompress and relieve stress in sustainable, deep ways. One reason I am excited to collaborate with Ompractice is because it allows busy people to weave yoga classes into their lives at home. Evening classes are a great opportunity for this; rather than winding down with a movie or Facebook, why not log into your computer to move, breathe, and reconnect?”
Practicing yoga in the evening has several benefits, including helping you de-stress, relax, and prepare for a night of deep sleep, adds Holsapple, who studied Ayurveda while earning her B.A. in Yoga at Naropa University and as part of her Yoga Therapy training.
“Considering the human body’s Circadian rhythm, this is the time of day we are beginning to unwind, let go of stress from the day, and prepare the mind and body for rest,” she explains. “Sleep is one of the most important processes for the human body for detoxification, emotional processing, and restoration of body and mind. The later hours of our days, according to Ayurveda, should be spent in nourishing self-care practices to honor the transition from our solar life (i.e. activity, work, “doing”) to lunar life (i.e. rest, creativity, “being”). Yoga is the perfect bridge into the lunar hours–silencing the mind, releasing tension from the body, and inducing deep relaxation to support a meaningful night of sleep!”
Taking an evening yoga class with your partner (from the comfort of your own home) is also an inspired idea for a memorable date night, says Alison Heintz, a busy mom of three in suburban Georgia who took Lisa Rischitelli’s Decompress & Rest Vinyasa class for Ompractice with her husband last Wednesday at 9 p.m.
“We elected to take that class because it was the only one late enough for us to do it together,” says Heintz. “We can’t do early mornings easily because that’s the time the kids get up. When the kids get home, it’s difficult with competing priorities like activities and homework. My husband gets home late, and we make it a priority to have a family dinner. The 9 p.m. class is perfect because it works so well for our schedule.”
Heintz and her husband have been practicing yoga together on and off since they first start dating, so when they heard about Ompractice, they thought it would make for a special, outside-the-box date night.
“We have been doing a date night once a month since our anniversary in July–a variety of different things, not just going out to dinner and movie. We push the limits of things we can do together and feel very connected on. Before we were married, we did yoga on DVDs. When I pregnant, he would do prenatal yoga with me. Life got in the way for a while. When I heard about Ompractice, I thought, ‘This is something we could do together.’”
The class turned out to be the perfect way to share a meaningful, intimate, and cost-efficient experience after the kids went to bed.
“It was wonderful. One thing we really liked was the instructor gave us her Spotify playlist, which she also had in her ear. She muted us, so if we needed to talk to each other, we could still connect and not be disruptive. It was a really cool experience to do it at home with my husband and have somebody watching us and guiding us–the best of both worlds.”