How Your Yoga Practice May Be Hurting The Planet
Yoga is one of the simplest and most peaceful workouts out there. With origins in ancient India, yoga rewards physical and mental discipline. It can have amazing health benefits including increased flexibility, energy, and weight loss. The activity can be done basically anywhere; on a beach, in a forest, or in your own basement.
Despite its modest origins, yoga has become a billion dollar industry in North America that continually strays further from its religious roots. Bikram yoga (also known as Hot Yoga) is a style of yoga that is preformed in a room heated to about 40.5°C. The increased temperature is supposed to help with circulation and flexibility during yoga practice, but this has been a subject of controversy among yogis since its conception.
My problem with Bikram yoga is that in order to practice something as simple as yoga there is an such an incredible environmental impact. The footprint tacked onto heating a room to that excessive temperature is unnecessary, especially since many hot yoga studios are located in shared buildings. That means that all the surrounding rooms and the floors above and below must adjust their air conditioners/heaters to compensate for the studio's temperature.
Bikram's footprint grows when you consider that after practicing yoga in a heated room for 90 minutes your clothes, hair and towels are sopping with sweat and immediately need cleaning. Instead of regular yoga that requires nothing but a mat, Bikram yoga requires at least two towels, a shower and a load of laundry.
Yoga is such as simple and natural bodily practice that it doesn't seem necessary to complicate it, especially not in an environmentally detrimental way.
So next time you are practicing yoga, try going to a park or into your backyard where the air is fresh, or to your neighbourhood studio that keeps its temperature neutral.
By Allison Smith
 Allison Smith | |
| About the author: | |
Allison is a graduate student at Ryerson University in Toronto and the Green Editor for WOMAN.ca. She is a sometimes journalist who digs music and adventures. Her weaknesses include vegetarian food, men with beards and Ontario wines. She can be seen cruising the city on her bicycle, sipping organic coffee and dining at restaurants she can't afford. To Allison, the green movement has everything to do with moving towards a more natural way of life. | |
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All studios are as green as possible, using eco friendly soaps and shampoos, laundry detergent etc. My studio in particular has a cork floor in the studio, and has no A/C - just fans. Showers are available but are limited to just a minute or two to conserve water. And tap water is the only kind of water available in the studio.
Also because of the heat generated by the studio on the top floor, there is no need to heat the rest of the building. And whatever power is generated, is offset through the use of Bullfrog Power http://www.bullfrogpower.com/.