MALAYSIA Airlines aircraft engineer Boey Choong Peng took up yoga classes solely to ease his back pain.

However, a few months after enrolling at the Yoga Franchise, he was hooked on the exercises that not only helped alleviate his suffering but brought other benefits as well.

“I am stronger in my inner self and have gained better control of a stressful situation,” he asserted.

Through deep breathing exercises, he is able to relax and handle stress better. Boey said he had a “very stressful and responsible” job, as many lives would be at stake should he make a mistake.

His instructor, Malaysian Yoga Association Mani Sekaran, said yoga helped Boey develop his inner strength the same way the ancient yogis accomplished their phenomenal feats.

Mani has also taught students with chronic ailments.

In yoga, the power to enlighten the body and mind is mostly acquired through stretching of muscles, relaxation, focussing and most significantly, through breathing techniques.

“Here, we teach 22 different breathing methods and hundreds of focussing techniques,” he said, adding that yoga was science and had no religious connotations.

A beginner with a stress problem is guided through multiple stretching exercises.

“You'll feel it slowly coming out, after which, you'll feel more comfortable, nicer and rested.''

Mani's student, Preeti Nair, who was drawn to yoga by what she read in books and articles, is focused on pursuing whole-being wellness.

A manager at Malaysian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Preeti said stress was inherent with workload and pressing deadlines. So, one must learn to deal with it.

For IGB Corp Bhd building supervisor Balachandran, taking up yoga was like “bumping into a white knight”.

Prior to practising yoga, he was overcome by exhaustion, stress and suffered from sleep disorder.

“I quit smoking after two weeks of indulging in yoga and following that, gave up drinking in less than two months,” he said.

Lawyer-turned-businesswoman Ezura Abdul Rahman, for example, who admires yoga's ability to hone one's inner wellness, also fancies the training that can tone her body as well. “I started with basic yoga, moved on to power yoga before I discovered BodyBalance at Fitness First,” she said.

BodyBalance, a brand representing the franchise of a fitness business, incorporates yoga with other health training and arts like Pilates and Tai Chi.

“My favourite exercise is still the pure yoga discipline,” she said, recalling the days when she resorted to yoga to help her arrest mental and physical stress when she was practising law.

With BodyBalance, she is also taught breathing methods and to practise them when faced with potentially stressful situations.

“I became a nicer person. When I feel like screaming at one of my staff, I just breathe deeply,” she quipped.