Hope Zvara is the co-founder of Mother Trucker Yoga, which offers simple 3-5 minute online video lessons that truckers can perform inside and outside of the cab of their truck — no mat required.
While out on the road, a truck driver’s movement can be limited and stress can be high. Yoga offers truckers a chance to move and stretch and decompress.
So what is yoga? Yoga has been round for more than 5,000 years. To some it is exercise and stretching. To others is quiet time and relaxation. To an outsider it might look like a strange contortion practice.
For me, it’s a lifestyle. It’s an opportunity to get quiet, to move my body, and to listen to something I believe many of us are lacking in this overstimulated world. I believe that yoga is something that any truck driver, making long hauls day after day, can benefit from.
Hope Zvara of Mother Trucker Yoga (right) demonstrates simple stretching moves that truckers can do outside the cab of their trucks.
Here are what I believe are the 20 most import benefits of yoga:
- Improves flexibility.
- Strengthens muscles, which can help with arthritis and back pain.
- Aids in realigning the spine to help distribute weight evenly.
- Moves all 300 joints.
- Helps keep spinal disks supple.
- Offers a natural weight-bearing exercise, increasing bone density.
- Gets your blood flowing, providing more oxygen to your cells and helps boost hemoglobin and red blood cells.
- Assists in increasing the drainage of lymph, helping to destroy and fight cancerous cells.
- Gets your heart rate up, lowering the risk of heart disease.
- Gets you breathing.
- Lowers blood pressure.
- Lowers cortisol levels, helping with long term memory and fighting depression.
- Turns up the heat to help to burn calories.
- Makes you more conscious of your being: eating, social, presence.
- Can lower blood sugar and LDL, and boosts HDL (“good” cholesterol).
- Improves coordination, reaction time, memory.
- Helps you to relax..
- Increases body awareness.
- Reduces chronic tension, muscle fatigue, soreness in the wrists, arms, shoulders, neck & face.
- Becomes a way to cope with the business of life.
To learn more about the benefits of yoga, visit the Yoga Statistics and Research page on the website of Mother Trucker yoga.
