Minnesota hospital holding yoga sessions on Xmas & New Year eves for “relaxing”

Windom Area Hospital, owned by the City of Windom (Minnesota) and managed by Sanford Health, was organizing special yoga classes on December 24 and 31, reportedly to help relieve the holidays stress. “Join us on Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve for ‘Peace, Love & Yoga’…Take a break from the Holiday bustle and join us for a relaxing yoga session”, Hospital announcement for the class says. Christmas Eve class was reportedly full. Yoga instructor Jenn Fast was quoted as saying: It's just a time to turn inward and have your focus be on your body and your breath. It really allows you to be more fully present with your family and friends as you celebrate. Distinguished Hindu statesman Rajan Zed, in a statement in Nevada today, commended the Hospital for coming forward and providing an opportunity during holiday season to area residents to avail the multiple benefits yoga offered. Yoga, referred as “a living fossil”, was a mental and physical discipline, for everybody to share and benefit from, whose traces went back to around 2,000 BCE to Indus Valley civilization, Zed pointed out. Rajan Zed further said that yoga, although introduced and nourished by Hinduism, was a world heritage and liberation powerhouse to be utilized by all. According to Patanjali who codified it in Yoga Sutra, yoga was a methodical effort to attain perfection, through the control of the different elements of human nature, physical and psychical. According to a recent report of US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: “Yoga is the most popular complementary health approach in the United States - used by 14.3% of the adult population, or 35.2 million people”. According to US National Institutes of Health, yoga may help one to feel more relaxed, be more flexible, improve posture, breathe deeply, and get rid of stress. Yoga was the repository of something basic in the human soul and psyche, Zed added. Windom Area Hospital, whose history goes back to 1905 and whose Mission is “Dedicated to Health”, is a critical access hospital providing 24-hour medical, surgical and emergency services. Dr. Michael B. Fisher is Board Chairperson while Shelby Medina is the CEO. Sanford Health claims to be “the nation's largest rural nonprofit health care system”.