It's no secret that menopause, particularly perimenopause (the beginning transition to menopause) can take a toll on sleep. According to the National Sleep Foundation, practicing good sleep hygiene and hormone replacement therapy are options to help quell insomnia for women in this stage of life. However, a new study shows that yoga could have some beneficial effects, too.

Researchers from the Group Health Research Institute found that taking a 12-week yoga class, in addition to practicing yoga at home, was linked with decreased insomnia among healthy, menopausal women.

They did not find, however, that yoga helped to decrease other symptoms of menopause, including hot flashes and night sweats.

The study, published in the journal Menopause, was a randomized-controlled study, where 107 healthy women were assigned to do 12 weekly 90-minute yoga classes (in addition to home practice every day), 106 were assigned to do exercise, and 142 just went about their usual activity. In addition, 177 of these women were randomly assigned to take omega-3 fatty acids, while 178 were assigned to a placebo. All the study participants were asked to keep daily diaries, which were assessed at the beginning of the study, and then six and 12 weeks into the study.

Researchers found that the difference in frequency of menopausal symptoms of hot flashes and night sweats was not statistically significant between the women assigned to do yoga and the women assigned to usual activity. However, they did find that yoga was linked with a decrease in insomnia, compared with usual activity.

The study authors did not identify a link between the omega-3 fatty acids and improvements in menopausal symptoms; exercise was linked with slight improvements to depression and insomnia, but the association was not statistically significant.

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October 03, 2013

Sixteen Mexican boys stretch their bodies sideways with one hand to the ground, the other pointing to the ceiling, listening to their yoga instructor in the bare room of a youth detention centre.

"Your crime doesn't matter right now, relax," Fredy Alan Diaz Arista, a 38-year-old former drug dealer who became a yoga teacher in prison, tells the teenagers facing homicide and robbery charges in Mexico City.

All dressed in navy blue sweatpants and white sleeveless shirts, the boys move in unison to Diaz's instructions, which he peppers with inspirational phrases as they breathe heavily, switching to poses like the downward dog, table and pigeon.

"Hands to the sky," says Diaz, his voice booming as he moves between blue and green mats in a room with barred windows. "Open your chest like a bird opening its wings and heading to freedom."

The soothing powers of yoga are among a slew of activities that the capital's juvenile halls offer to young offenders, hoping to steer them straight in a country struggling to defeat a wave of drug-related violence that has not spared Mexico's youth.

Within the high, barbed wire-topped walls of the Comprehensive Teenager Diagnostics Community (CDIA) in Mexico City, the 219 young detainees can learn carpentry, music or how to make tortillas in the cafeteria under the watch of unarmed guards in black uniforms.

Diaz's yoga class attracts teenagers like Jesus, 16, accused of rape, Pedro, 14, facing charges of killing a woman, and Eric, 19, who was sentenced to the maximum five years for a juvenile for the crimes of homicide, kidnapping and extortion.

"There are days when I wake up stressed out because I have a lot of time to serve, but when I come here all the stress goes away and I relax," says Eric, who was 17 when he decided to make "easy money" by helping to kidnap a man who was later killed.

Diaz learned yoga himself in prison after he was caught with a gun and 18 kilograms of cocaine in his luggage, which he was taking from the Pacific coast state of Guerrero to Mexico City in 2002.

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This yoga's a doddle.

This is my thought as I execute a textbook "crab" pose on a paddleboard while floating on the calm, turquoise waters off the Cook Islands.

As the only male in the class I'm pretty content with my first foray into the ancient art.

And with the South Pacific sun beating down, and natural beauty all around, I'm sure there will be plenty of Facebook profile picture moments during my week-long stand-up paddleboard (SUP) yoga retreat.

This mindset lasts until we get back on dry land and I'm shown snaps taken during the session.

To my horror, I seem to have been photoshopped out and replaced by some contorted, grimacing imposter performing a pale imitation of the poses perfected by my four flexible female yoga buddies.

Oh wait, it's me.

And I'm rubbish.

As my SUP yoga instructor Charlotte Piho explains, I'm not the first male participant to underestimate just how difficult the activity can be.

"Women tend to be better at stand-up paddleboard yoga as they're naturally more balanced," she reassures me.

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