Women’s Day 2021: Ira Trivedi on how yoga helps women in dealing with stress and leading a healthy lifestyle

Yoga is an ancient practice that has proven to be beneficial for healing the body and mind. It releases a channel to vent out negative energy and induce positivity all around. It evokes a sense of spirit that helps us in staying calm and coping with stressful situations from day to day life.

On this Women’s Day, a day devoted to spreading awareness about the strength and unity of women across the globe, we got a chance to speak with the talented Ira Trivedi, Indian author and famous yoga teacher on how women are taking up responsibilities upon their shoulders pertaining to all spectrums of life.

Women are proving to be more efficient, independent, strong, resilient and mastering the art of multitasking every day. They are choosing professions of their liking and making sure that everything is in complete harmony. From spending time with their children to managing their screen time while working from home, women are doing a fantastic job in running the household as well as keeping in mind their source of livelihood. 

Let us find out what Ira Trivedi has to say about women and mindful living by practising yoga:

Health has become a very important aspect for women and they have started taking care. How do you see that? 

“We see that from the huge number of women who come to our online yoga studio. In fact, we see that it’s women who are more serious, they are actually the ones who come to classes on a regular basis. It is very surprising to see that because during the pandemic women also had a lot of extra chores, they are at home so they have to take care of their children’s education. They have to make sure they are attending the online classes, having to sit with them and make sure that they are studying. Also, about their diet, when we do nutrition programmes, we see that a large majority of people who come are women. It is women who follow these courses and programmes more seriously.”

This Women's Day one suggestion you would like to give to all the women out there? 

“One suggestion that I would like to give on women’s day is to incorporate 5-10 minutes of meditation into their lives. Simply because women these days live such stressful lives. A lot of women are working but they are also still doing a lot of domestic work. Women are working out of the house but they are still expected to do everything in the house and that creates a double whammy. With men, the roles are still segregated. So, 5-10 minutes of mediation is crucial.”

How do yoga and a healthy lifestyle help women to manage their hectic schedules? 

“There is a sutra from the yoga sutras of Patanjali, that is yoga chitta vritti nirodha and what this means is that fluctuations of the mind, how our temper goes up and down, our mood swings, all of this can be controlled by the practice of yoga and this is the truth, I have experienced this in my own life. So, yoga helps in keeping those fluctuating emotions at bay. It helps give steadiness which doesn’t happen often because our mind is like a roller coaster. So, doing yoga can really help with all of that."

Women have multiple things to handle at work as well as at home. How does diet impact their lifestyle?

"It makes it really really hard actually. As I mentioned earlier, women have to handle both the tasks, at home and out of home also. So what is really important to have is effective time management. To be able to manage all of these which a woman has to do these days and it is very much possible. So few tips to do that, plan your yoga time, plan it in advance along with planning your food regime and meals, just like you plan everything else in life. Instead of just randomly deciding and eating out of the fridge and deciding at the last moment, plan your menu for the week. Every Sunday sit down and plan your menu, purchase your ingredients in advance. Make sure your fridge is stocked, make a menu and paste it in the kitchen so that you know what needs to be cooked on that particular day. The same is with yoga, plan your yoga, like on Monday I’m going to be doing 40 minutes on Wednesday 60 minutes and so on. Plan your entire yoga schedule because this makes it more manageable to plan your day. Just like you plan for your holiday and for your kids, plan for yourself. Don’t just say that I am going to do yoga whenever I get free time because it often doesn’t happen. Coming to yoga classes is easy now as it is all online, you can book your classes online and by doing this you are setting your intentions, so I think instead of doing it randomly, you should plan.”

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