On a sunny winter morning at Carmel Presbyterian Church, eight women and their instructor pose on their yoga mats in squares of light that pour from surrounding windows. The walls are bare, except for a wooden cross.

At intervals through the hour, leader Kristine Reynolds plays snatches of contemporary Christian music or stops to read from the Bible. God sees you today, he knows you by name, she tells the women, as they reach and stretch. His love for you is more wonderful than you can imagine.

This is Holy Yoga, a Christian approach to yoga thats gaining popularity throughout the United States and across the Charlotte region from Concord to Waxhaw.

Jill Archer, 59, a member of the Church of Charlotte, regularly attends Reynolds gentle-level Holy Yoga class at Carmel Presbyterian. Since she started coming in September, shes invited five or six people to check out the class, too. Its just a fun, relaxing time, and its worshipful, she says.

In the Word, it says, Be still and know I am God, says Reynolds, 47. I think theres a lot of Christians out there that are busy, busy, busy. Their lives are spiraling out of control.

Holy Yoga offers an opportunity to get off the merry-go-round of life and just be still.

Holy Yoga, founded in 2005 in Phoenix by nondenominational Christian and yoga teacher Brooke Boon, encourages its instructors to teach in their native language rather than using Sanskrit terms.

Instead of saying, Namaste, we say, The light of Christ in me honors the light of Christ in you, says Reynolds.

Holy Yoga teachers take at least 200 hours of training. This includes standard instruction in how to cue yoga poses, in alignment and breath, as well as studies in Christian Scriptures.

Between 15 million and 20 million people practice yoga in this country, according to Gyandev McCord, author of the forthcoming book Spiritual Yoga and cofounder of Yoga Alliance, an organization created 14 years ago to ensure quality and consistency of instruction for yoga teachers in the United States.

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Christian yoga comes to Charlotte

Champion British paracyclist David Stone was not so much cowed down by cerebral palsy as he was by anger when he discovered the key to calmness on a hillock 200km from Patna.

The Bihar School of Yoga, which 31-year-old Stone credits with helping him slay his demons to strike gold at the London Paralympics last year, is coming to town for a series of camps this February to mark its golden jubilee.

The camps, part of a nationwide tour from January to June, will culminate in the fourth edition of the World Yoga Camp in Munger, Bihar, in October, an event held only once every 20 years.

"Yoga is much more than just a set of physical movements. These camps are primarily meant to raise awareness about the greater potential of yoga," Bharati Majumdar, who is organising the city leg of the tour, told Metro. "The Bihar School of Yoga believes in a holistic approach aimed at nurturing the body, mind and spirit."

The first World Yoga Camp had been organised in 1953 by Swami Sivananda Saraswati in Rishikesh, a decade before his disciple Swami Satyananda founded the Bihar School of Yoga in 1963. The two subsequent camps at an interval of 20 years each were in Munger.

For those in Calcutta who would want to benefit from the techniques of the Bihar School of Yoga like Stone did, there will be a camp open to all at Safari Park on Southern Avenue from February 18 to 20.

The other camps will be invitation-only affairs on the campuses of IIM Joka and the GD Birla group of schools. There will be a camp exclusively for CESC employees and a few in residential complexes across the city.

Yoga teachers in Calcutta associated with the school say that yoga as a discipline cannot be generalised.

"The Munger school has always tried to adapt itself to the changing needs of individuals. That will be our focus at the camps as well," said a teacher associated with school for 17 years.

Stone, who swears by the mental and physical conditioning he received in Munger since he was 21, had told The Telegraph after winning gold in the Mixed T 1-2 Road Race that anger was his biggest enemy until he discovered the Bihar School of Yoga.

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Benefits of yoga etched in Stone

REGULAR yoga classes could help people with a common heart rhythm problem manage their symptoms while also improving their state of mind, say US scientists.

Millions of people around the world have atrial fibrillation, in which the hearts upper chambers quiver chaotically instead of contracting normally.

People with atrial fibrillation are often prescribed drugs such as beta blockers to help control their heart rate and rhythm. But the medicines dont alleviate symptoms for all patients, researchers note which is where add-ons like yoga could come in.

"This may be something they should consider," says Dr Todd Cade, a physical therapy researcher from Washington University School of Medicine in St Louis.

"Yoga could be a beneficial treatment for people with atrial fibrillation. Obviously they should talk to their doctor before they start a programme," says Dr Cade, who was not involved in the new research.

"There are a lot of other benefits of yoga, and there arent a lot of negatives," he says.

The new study included 49 people who had atrial fibrillation for an average of five years. For three months, researchers led by Dr Dhanunjaya Lakkireddy from the University of Kansas Medical Centre in Kansas City tracked study volunteers heart symptoms and their blood pressure and heart rate, as well as their anxiety, depression and general quality of life.

For the second phase of the study, the same participants went to group yoga classes at least twice a week for an additional three months, again reporting on their symptoms and quality of life.

All of the patients were on stable medications throughout the study period.

Nonetheless, the number of times they reported heart quivering which was confirmed by a heart monitor dropped from almost four times during the first three months to twice during the yoga intervention phase. Their average heart rate also fell from 67 beats a minute at the start of the study to between 61 and 62 beats a minute post-yoga.

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Yoga may help get errant hearts back into rhythm