Dr. Sharon Jalene Ph.D is the Assistant Dean of Kinesiological Sciences over at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.  She found her passion for Yoga from becoming a Bikram Yoga teacher in 2004 and combining it with the passion of being a Professor at UNLV. 

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- What knowledge do you have for Yoga? 

• I have been teaching Bikram yoga since 2004, it was actually being a yoga teacher that kind of sparked my desire to go into Kinesiology and become a doctor, so i would say that my path was yoga to academia!  

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- What do you think are the emotional and mental benefits of Yoga are?

• It is an interesting practice and that the movements themselves along with breathing elicit tremendous responses from the body that improve health, both physical and mental. I don't think anyone in science fully understands why, which is again why I wanted to go to school so I could research and understand better what was happening and believe that the systematic movements in some cases make sense why these movements would be beneficial to the body without even considering the rhythm of the movements and the breathing but indeed I have seen some amazing health people recover from diseases and I myself have healed my body so, I don't know why it is, but it is.

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- What do you think the physical benefits of Yoga are?

• There are so many different styles of Yoga, that it’s difficult to say specifically for all, but hakka yoga which is any of the physical practices that we do, so all of those physical practices fall under the limb of yoga of haffa yoga and there 8 limbs so sometimes when people are talking about different practices of yoga, they’re talking about yanna yoga which is gaining knowledge or pranayama which is breathing but for haffa yoga, which includes all of our downward dog, upward dog Bikram yoga practice, and vinyasa flow all of those are haffa yoga practices, so that's where the physical benefits come from and I think there is a combination of exercise which is fantastic for your body but also the manipulation of circulation i think is one of the underlying factors for some of the really great physical responses I think strengthening the core muscles and helping better to support the spine is another reason, the nervous system is the electrical pathway for the body so whenever you can improve the structure, you’re improving the structure of the spine, you’re just gonna have better health overall. But I also suspect there are some additional things that we have yet to uncover through scientific inquiry that may have to do with connective tissue and also metabolites and other factors that are released after yoga practice from the deep compression and stretching so you fold, you compress, and then you stretch and all of those are known in exercise physiology to produce certain responses cellularly and I think that those might also be part of it. Additionally, I think when people begin a yoga practice, they take better care of themselves, they sleep more, drink more water, and eat better food. I think it all just comes along with a bit of a different approach or lifestyle. 

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- Do you think there is a spiritual benefit with Yoga?

• I personally find that anything spiritual is something different for everybody, I certainly think that yoga is a spiritual practice in many countries and I am not that familiar with that. But I do find that it allows me to be more connected to what I believe to be enlightening and it really depends on the person and what they’re looking for. Through the Bikram practice, it did allow me to become more connected with muscles so with a pathway to that but it isn't a requirement to practice yoga, it's for everybody. 

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- Is there anything that you learned or experienced from being a yoga instructor? Anything that changed your life or surprised you? 

• I think being a yoga instructor is the reason why I am a professor now. I don’t think that I would be where I am at right now if I hadn’t become a yoga teacher. So, there’s many things so stimulating curiosity is what’s happening in the body during this workout, why my body heals through this practice to learning how to be a teacher and how to direct people in the healing arts and keeping people motivated, on track, and from wanting to quit. Yoga is a very disciplined and dedicated practice. 

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           MEET MS. NITA ANDRIEU!

 Nita Andrieu is a Yoga instructor with an extensive background, and has been teaching Yoga at the         University of Nevada, Las Vegas since 2007. She also teaches for the city of Henderson and other locations     around Las Vegas. 

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- What do you think are the mental and emotional benefits of Yoga are? 

• I think that they help regulate your biological system is what they do. So for example we're affected beyond COVID-19 and just by normal pressures like taking an exam, having enough money to put gas in your car to get to school, you know those kinds of things. And the problem is we don't have enough mechanisms to help balance out the stressors because what happens to us biologically, maybe more specifically neurologically, is that when we are under stress, those hormones rise and sort of good feel hormones decline. It doesn't have to specifically be yoga, any kind of mindful practice, so you don't just get on a bicycle and just ride, you think about the mechanisms like what is your body doing while it's riding and those things help to balance out neurological systems. 

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- What do you think are the physical benefits of Yoga are?

• When we think of Yoga, it's kind of subjective because nowadays, you can go to fast, hard, hot yoga. There has been an explosion of Yoga within the last 10 years and somewhere around 36 million people say that they have at least tried yoga. People create their own styles of yoga because of the lack of comprehension. Depending on the style that they choose for themselves, they can gain flexibility, get stronger, which are very very important components it helps with the longevity of your working organs. So if you're not moving around and sitting a lot the core of your body is being compacted and so the act of just moving allows better and stronger organ function. I personally don't think that Hot Yoga is ideal for our systems because our body will naturally heat up in response to exercise. 

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-  What do you think are the spiritual benefits of Yoga are?

• Yoga doesn't equate to the same as judaism or christianity, what I believe Yoga does is that it enhances your own spirituality. Regardless of what you believe, using Yoga to create balance in your mind, body and your emotion, then therefore makes you a more stable person within you, so that way you can create and connect more deeply with your spirituality. I tell that to my UNLV yoga students, my job is not to tell you who or what to believe in, I think we should all believe in something. As you find balance in your mind and in your body and your emotions, you open yourself up to a clearer path to your own spirituality. 

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- Do you think that we Americanized and modernized Yoga? 

• Oh yes, absolutely. There is good and there is bad in that, there's a chance that we might not have even tried yoga had there not been a fast hot yoga. Over time people learn how does it help their mind, their emotions, and their relationships with other people. It's not a bad thing that we make it our own. 

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- Is there anything that surprised you as a Yoga Instructor? 

• There have been many things that has surprised me, I think. One thing that I'm working on, this paper specifically is Can Yoga Help People Recover from Trauma Related Symptoms. In all of my research that led me to this is how are we really affected by our peers and our perception. 

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