With the array of benefits offered by smartphones, you might wonder how people could ever live without them. We’ve become so consumed by our devices that we check them every six-and-a-half minutes. But if you want to break your smartphone addiction and start enjoying life in the present moment, you might want to start practicing yoga.
“If you think you’re not patient enough to do it, then that’s all the more reason to do yoga,” said Pew Natthamon, CSOFT’s very own yoga instructor who is also the head of the Corporate Services department in the Beijing office. Pew said practicing yoga helps her focus on tasks at hand and primes her to be mindful of her own body.
“Yoga has transformed my life in a lot of ways. It makes me feel grounded and helps me relax and focus on myself—body and soul,” said Pew. “When you do yoga, you not only develop muscle strength, but you also look inward and start paying attention to your body alignment–how you sit, walk, bend, lift and go about your daily life.”
Milk & Cookies FITNESS
Originally from Thailand, Pew has been teaching Yoga to a handful of CSOFTers since June last year. The twice-a-week class was launched as part of Milk & Cookies FITNESS, a campaign to promote health and wellness in the office. A central point of CSOFT culture, Milk & Cookies Café aims to bring people together and provide a platform for employees to share their wealth of knowledge.
Yoga has transformed my life in a lot of ways. It makes me feel grounded and helps me relax and focus on myself—body and soul
“The main goal is to bring our foreign and local staff together. Yoga is such a great way to connect with people. I just want to offer another way for people to interact within this office. When you do stuff together, there is at least an agent that makes that first interaction easier,” she said.
To promote an even greater friendship between employees, Pew is also planning to launch Milk & Cookies Lunch Club—a monthly cooking activity—and a volunteer program, where CSOFTers can have a chance to donate their time and energy for a good cause.
“The Milk & Cookies Café is meant to be a sharing community. Here at CSOFT, we have such a wealth of culture because we all come from different places. There are so many indirect benefits from sharing and learning together. At the end of the day, you feel good because you’re helping others and connecting to something beyond yourself,” she added.
Pew herself has chosen to give back to the community by sharing her yoga expertise with us. We are so grateful for her patience as an instructor and for destroying the myth that yoga is only about stretching and improving flexibility. Through her guidance, we have learned that it also helps you build muscle strength and increase awareness to your whole body alignment. Because yoga encourages your mind to focus on just one thing at a time, it can therefore help you improve concentration and tune out distractions.
“I used to have an attention problem and was unable to sit in one place for a long period of time. Yoga changed that,” Pew added. “Now I do breathing exercises during my subway commute instead of staring at my phone.”
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