{"id":1081,"date":"2008-08-31T08:00:52","date_gmt":"2008-08-31T13:00:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.dietsinreview.com\/diet_column\/08\/mexican-prisoners-turn-to-yoga\/"},"modified":"2008-08-31T08:00:52","modified_gmt":"2008-08-31T13:00:52","slug":"mexican-prisoners-turn-to-yoga","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dietsinreview.com\/diet_column\/08\/mexican-prisoners-turn-to-yoga\/","title":{"rendered":"Mexican Prisoners Turn to Yoga"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>We usually associate the word &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.dietsinreview.com\/diet_column\/07\/yoga-keeps-you-calm-in-the-midst-of-chaos\/\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"yoga\">yoga<\/a>&#8221; with peace, tranquility, compassion, and harmlessness. Rarely do the grim faces of drug addiction, theft, and even murder become conjured up when you think about this ancient practice of meditation and self-evolution. But that is exactly the\u00a0gap that is being bridged in Mexican prisons these days.<\/p>\n<p>For the past three months, 90 prisoners in a Mexico City prison have been receiving weekly yoga classes in attempt to\u00a0rehabilitate these hardened prisoners and drug addicts. Under the direction of a yoga and meditation teacher, this video shows how\u00a0these inmates are learning the immensely powerful benefits of the mind&#8217;s ability to transcend a difficult moment or situation.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.cnn.com\/video\/savp\/evp\/?loc=dom&#038;vid=\/video\/world\/2008\/08\/24\/whitbeck.mexico.prison.yoga.cnn\" height=\"393\" width=\"406\" allowtransparency=\"true\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Rather than giving in to the thoughts and behavior of violence and destruction, they instead, search deep within their spirit to connect with their own humanity and cultivate feelings of compassion, empathy and stillness as they watch their thoughts and emotions wax and eventually wane.\u00a0The benefits\u00a0that\u00a0meditation and yoga have brought to these inmates is no different than for the millions of Americans who have turned to yoga as their sanctuary to offer relief for the suffering experienced in their own lives.<\/p>\n<p>Most of us are not criminals, but we have all had thoughts of violence and harm with the difference being that we sit on these thoughts rather than acting them out like these prisoners have. As a yoga practitioner for the past six years and as a health professional who has worked with drug addicts and criminals, most prison systems around the world, do little to truly rehabilitate the offender.<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.dietsinreview.com\/diet_column\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/08\/prison.jpg\" title=\"prison\" alt=\"prison\" align=\"right\" height=\"240\" width=\"240\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Our prison system is just one example. With\u00a0a recidivism rate of\u00a067 percent of former inmates released from U.S. state prisons who return to jail within three years are bleak and ugly\u00a0figures. Something needs to change. Many juvenile and adult correctional facilities around this country are employing yoga as a means of rehabilitation. In fact, I have a few yoga colleagues who generously offer their teaching expertise and compassion to inmates on a regular basis. Maybe yoga is the answer, or at least a partial answer, to stop the cycle of prisons from being &#8220;crime colleges&#8221; that prime criminals to commit additional and sometimes more serious crimes following their release.<\/p>\n<p>Most individuals who take up a consistent <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dietsinreview.com\/diet_column\/category\/yoga\/\" title=\"yoga\" target=\"_blank\">yoga practice<\/a> in combination with a meditation practice exhibit more control in their dysfunctional\u00a0behaviors. They also gain a more acute awareness of their mind and spirit&#8217;s power to not get usurped by destructive thoughts which run the\u00a0risk of leading to\u00a0dangerous\u00a0actions. \u00a0From my vantage point, all of us, prisoners and non-prisoners alike, could benefit from the calming and introspective practice of engaging in regular yoga and meditation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We usually associate the word &#8220;yoga&#8221; with peace, tranquility, compassion, and harmlessness. Rarely do the grim faces of drug addiction, theft, and even murder become conjured up when you think about this ancient practice of meditation and self-evolution. But that &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/dietsinreview.com\/diet_column\/08\/mexican-prisoners-turn-to-yoga\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[31],"class_list":["post-1081","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fitness","tag-health-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dietsinreview.com\/diet_column\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1081","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dietsinreview.com\/diet_column\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dietsinreview.com\/diet_column\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dietsinreview.com\/diet_column\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dietsinreview.com\/diet_column\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1081"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dietsinreview.com\/diet_column\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1081\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dietsinreview.com\/diet_column\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1081"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dietsinreview.com\/diet_column\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1081"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dietsinreview.com\/diet_column\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1081"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}