This Friday, 21 June, is International Day of Yoga. I’m celebrating the occasion by championing an initiative to see yoga offered on prescription as part of the NHS social prescribing initiative.

This will see me and other yoga teachers, mark the occasion by offering free yoga classes at GP surgeries, hospitals and community centres in South Yorkshire and across the UK.

The nation-wide initiative, known as #Yoga4All, aims to raise awareness of how can improve health and support wellbeing. The intention is to see yoga available under the social prescribing initiative. This is a means of enabling GPs and care professionals to refer people to a range of local, non-clinical services.

Why are we doing this? Because a growing body of research finds that when practised regularly, yoga can lead to better health and wellbeing. And Dru Yoga in particular is backed up by extensive University research showing that it eases back pain, decreases stress, reduces anxiety and fatigue, while also boosting confidence and emotional well-being.

So, making yoga available on prescription would give people simple yet effective tools to achieve these lasting health benefits in their own lives. And, at the same time reducing the longer-term burden of care on the NHS.

International Yoga Day 2019 will find me teaching classes during the day in Sheffield and Rotherham, and later that night, in London!