Deschutes jail inmates use yoga to relieve stress, anxiety
There’s a new yoga studio in Central Oregon, and it’s not what you would expect. It has bars on the windows, guards in the corner and inmates on the mats.
It’s yoga for inmates — only women, for now — and it’s turned one room at the Deschutes County Jail into a warm and welcoming place.
Behind three locked and guarded doors, inmates like Angel Wood are practicing yoga, hopeful it will help with their anxiety and stress.
“There is anxiety big time. But this will help,” Wood said Thursday.
“Programs help us get out of our mind, because you get in, you get stuck,” she said. “You think, what I could have done, what I couldn’t have done. What I should have done, what I didn’t’ — and it’ll drive you really anxious and excited, and it brings on other emotions. But this helps. The program helps.”
The goal is to reduce stress and anxiety among inmates without prescription medication. Inmates spend much of their time behind locked doors, in windowless rooms.
The instructors simply want to make a difference, said Nancy Lumpkin from Namaspa Yoga and Massage in Bend. Lumpkin’s time is funded through the Namaspa Foundation, a nonprofit. and the teachers volunteer for what programs they can make it to.
“My hope is that each person that comes to this class feels that connection with their true self,” Lumpkin said. “And as they leave the room, they’ll feel better about themselves, they’ll make smarter choices.
“And as they leave this facility, hopefully they’ll continue on with this practice, and hopefully, create a different lifestyle for themselves,” she added said.
The program is free, and Programs Deputy Joe Holland said he wants the community to understand the importance of treating inmates with dignity.
“These are human beings. They are just like any family members we have,” Holland said. “People make mistakes, and they’re serving their debt to society. And if we can help them a little bit with less stress, that’s a positive.”
Even if yoga influences just one inmate on one single day to make one better decision, then the program can be called a success.
And some inmates, like Katrina Evans, hope to take their yoga practice outside the barred windows.
“I think it makes everybody in a lot better mood, a lot happier,” Evans said.
“We all sleep on jail beds, which are not comfy,” she said. And I feel like it helps relax us in our body and makes everybody get along better, because there’s a lot of tension.”
The Deschutes County Sheriff’s Office hopes to eventually offer yoga to male inmates as well. Along with helping with anxiety, the goal is to reduce the jail’s recidivism rate.
