Feeling stressed, or overwhelmed? Need a way to just unwind? Have you tried yoga?

Yoga has been shown to help with stress, especially during the Covid-19 pandemic. It’s been proven that Mondays are society’s least favorite day of the week, so on Mission Mondays, yoga is now an option.  

Ms. Joellen Desautels, the photography and graphic design instructor, has begun hosting virtual yoga sessions this year, welcoming everyone. She has started these sessions in hopes of making Mondays more fun and relaxing, she said.  

Desautels has taught here for five years and has done yoga for more than 25. She said she started yoga as a way to calm her down and release stress while living in Chicago. And she has been doing it ever since. She said, “It opens those dark and heavy places in the body. Yoga is a moving meditation because you’re slowing down and breathing more deeply, which activates the parasympathetic nervous system and calms you down.”

Everyone is invited to attend these sessions on Mission Mondays from 11:30 a.m. to noon. “Everyone” includes your household, friends and family, too. Desautels begins each session with an intention, thought, prayer or some kind of motivational quote.

According to Desautels, yoga poses use different muscles from the ones normally used every day, and this aids in flexibility, which is why so many athletes incorporate it into their workouts.

If you don’t want anyone to see you pose, you’re allowed to have your camera off during the Zoom meet, she noted. 

Anyone who wants to participate in Mission Monday yoga may access Zoom by going to Principal Mrs. Julie Barthel’s weekly emailed student newsletter and finding the link. 

As Desautels said she was taught, “A flexible spine is a flexible mind.”