Calm down, beam up Beam me up 8/breathing
After years of yoga practice, going into early labour on the First Great Western to London was a piece of cake for the extremely cool Mercedes Ngoh
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raffi c jams, impossible deadlines, paying the bills, making that fl ight, moving house, ordering wine, keeping the kids happy (and in line)… it can be pretty hard not to sweat the small stuff , let alone the big, really scary
stuff . A sense of peace and tranquillity, we all suspect, would make it so much easier to smile, whatever the big bad world throws at us. But how to obtain that rare commodity?
Meet Mercedes Ngoh, a living, inspiring embodiment of the inner calm we all aspire to achieve. A teacher of soothing, inspiring vinyasa fl ow yoga and co-founder of Yeotown, a ‘radiant health retreat’ in Devon, Ngoh is gorgeous, sexy, super- bendy, amusing and sincere. And inner peace? She’s got it in spades. Ten days before our interview, she
was on a train to London on a Friday night, alone – she was 36-and-a-half weeks pregnant, but saw no reason not to teach her normal weekend classes in the capital – when she went into labour. With her contractions coming every four minutes, the train made an emergency stop to deposit her at the nearest hospital – Basingstoke – where her baby, Rumi Rosalie, arrived before the morning. This she relates in her usual cheerful, rippling cadences as if it was an everyday event rather than a major drama. ‘It wasn’t the way I planned it, but I think I just had to be calm,’ she says, ‘otherwise the gravity of the situation would have been overwhelming. At the hospital, they thought I was so calm I couldn’t actually be in labour, so I just
breathed on through it, and suddenly they said, “Oh my God, you’re 9cm dilated.” But there’s no way I could have been like that before I got into yoga – I would have been in freak-out mode.’ Before she discovered yoga, Mercedes,
who was born in Canada, worked in California singing, dancing and songwriting. However, aſt er spending time in Sri Lanka doing relief work for victims of the 2004 tsunami, the practice took over her life and she began to train as a teacher. So how can the rest of us bring yoga into our lives and keep our cool when the pressure is rising? ‘It’s a question of listening to what your
body needs,’ says Mercedes. ‘People have a real misconception about what yoga is. They think they have to be really fl exible, and do classes.’ For her, it’s more about attitude. ‘Yoga helps give you perspective. If you can stretch and release negativity from the mind and spirit, then it is less likely that you will fl ip out when faced with stressful situations.’ Most importantly, a secure and grounded
sense of calm makes other pleasures more accessible: ‘It enhances life!’ she exclaims. ‘You become more aware, and you can become happy in moments that you might otherwise take for granted.’
yeotown.com
What makes Mercedes smile? ‘My daughter Rumi Rosalie and my partner (Simon Sieff , co-founder of Yeotown). That’s a no-brainer. Also, the fact that I get to do what I love, and it helps people. It’s my job and my life. I did many jobs that my heart wasn’t in, to pay the bills, but now my heart is in this. It feels complete and that makes me smile.’
inner peace, on a schedule
Too busy for a full cycle of sun salutations? Just remembering to breathe smoothly and fully is a good place to start, particularly when you feel the tension rising. Try the following stress-busting techniques from Mercedes: 1. Practice alternate nostril breathing to clear tension: block one nostril, breathe in and out, then block the other nostril and repeat. 2. Sitting on a chair, do gentle spinal twists, exhaling as you turn, to loosen
your back. 3. Putting a cushion beneath your sit-bones (towards the back of the chair) changes the way your pelvis rests on a seat and puts the lower back under less stress. 4. Be grateful – for all that you have, and for what your body can do
PHOTOGRAPHY: ABIGAIL ZOE MARTIN. HAIR AND MAKE-UP: EMMA MILES
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