Stretching Your Limits

It’s noon on the lot of Paramount Studios and yoga instructor Debbie Lehwalder Nietert is helping Paramount employees become more relaxed people--and better workers.

“Allow the brain to become quiet, turning the focus inward. Allow the body and mind to become one,” Nietert says to her class of about 20 yoga enthusiasts.

Denise Scheerer is one of those. She goes to Nietert’s yoga class on her lunch hour, she said, because yoga helps her handle the problems of her job as a manager at Paramount.

“When someone calls screaming--I get the calls,” Scheerer said. “With yoga, I can step back and not buy into their anxiety or anger. I’m just better at my job.”

Paul Cousins, a data-control worker for Paramount, agrees. “I don’t get as excited about problems as I once did. I just think, ‘It’s OK. I’ll handle it.’ ”

Yoga, a craze in the soul-searching 1960s, has not only resurfaced among Southern Californians but is increasingly moving into their once-stodgy workplaces as a perk for overloaded and stressed-out employees. Invented about 5,000 years ago by Hindus, yoga involves stretching, special postures and breathing exercises. Traditionally, yoga was combined with contemplative meditation, but modern enthusiasts are often initially more interested in yoga as a form of relaxation and muscle conditioning.

“A lot of people come in for the workout but then discover the focus and concentration that you can take back into the workplace. That helps you deal with stressful situations,” Nietert said.

Still, no matter what the reason is for signing up for yoga, spirituality is always part of the package, yoga specialists say.

“The spiritual happens,” said Erich Schiffmann, an author and yoga instructor at Yoga Works in Santa Monica. “Many people don’t expect it, and they freak out.”

Through yoga, said Schiffmann, some people realize how unhappy they are with a job or a relationship. The effect is so disquieting at times that students who don’t want to face life changes will just stop taking yoga, he said.

But the devotees of yoga swear by it. Madonna credits yoga with helping her voice. Julia Roberts and other Hollywood notables are big fans. And it’s almost commonplace: At the Ritz-Carlton in Marina del Rey, guests can order a room-service yoga master for $85 an hour.

Now, America’s corporate giants have discovered yoga, said Michael Gliksohn, publisher of Yoga Journal, a Berkeley-based publication that tracks yoga trends.

“We are seeing so much more of this in corporate America,” Gliksohn said. “I’m always struck by the ingenuity of yoga teachers who find a way to adapt yoga to so many different environments--from the inner cities to prisons and to corporate America.”

Yoga teachers these days are finding lucrative work among corporations that are eager to retain executive talent and keep overworked management and rank-and-file staff from getting burned out.

“People like the stress relief--everyone comes out of a yoga class completely refreshed,” said Randy Fiel, who heads the fitness center at the Getty Center, which offers yoga to its workers, stressed out from dealing with crowds of art lovers.

Stewart Richlin is another crossover yoga teacher. After trying yoga, Richlin left his Beverly Hills law practice to become an instructor.

“Because of my corporate connections, I’m able to transmit how to do yoga in a practical way to businesspeople who don’t want a lot of mystical nonsense,” said Richlin, who runs Yoga on Melrose.

Richlin has brought yoga to major publishing houses and some top executives, mostly in the entertainment arena.

“Many have already found that the type-A behavior of running in place and pumping weights doesn’t decrease tension, it just increases it,” he said. “Corporate America is doing yoga because it works--that’s the bottom line.”

In the last five years, Richlin said, the view of yoga has changed among businesspeople, who see it as a way to help them do their jobs better and make more money. Increasingly, others also look to the more spiritual side of yoga to help bring ethics into the workplace.

But Anne Appleby, a Los Angeles designer of yoga clothing, said the increased physical benefits of yoga are still the primary draw.

“In the 1960s, yoga was just sitting and humming,” Appleby said. “Now it’s a workout.”

“People are extremely stressed out--with fax machines, cell phones and everything,” said Appleby, who began taking yoga classes while working at Paramount.

“Yoga puts you in touch with yourself. It’s phenomenal.”

But while yoga is on the upswing in the workplace, most companies, especially those in more old-line industries, still don’t sponsor or pay for their workers to take yoga programs.

Richard Dore, director of corporate communications for Hughes Electronics in El Segundo, said that like most aerospace companies, Hughes doesn’t offer yoga classes.

“Nobody’s even heard anything about yoga clubs or yoga being offered here,” he said.