The first Youth Empowerment Seminar Plus (YES+) is coming to USC next Thursday to give students a chance to relax, rejuvenate and cleanse.
Nisha Balani, a third-year global supply chain and operations management student, volunteered for two years with The Art of Living Foundation, before organizing the first workshop ever to be held at USC.
"The reason I brought this to the university is to help the attention deficiency, the rate of depression, the anxiety of students and the tendency [to commit] suicide among students," Balani said. "All of these things can be eliminated through breathing exercises to rejuvenate your own mind, body and soul."
This five-day intensive workshop involves a series of yoga exercises, meditation techniques and ancient yoga rhythmic breathing techniques.
"There's no prerequisite or requirements for this," Balani said. "All you have to do is come with an enthusiastic smile, comfortable clothing and a desire to do something good for your body, your mind and your life."
Balani said this course is necessary in order to achieve a significant change in one's life.
"To get something profound in your life, it's not going to come by doing something little, it's going to come by doing something profound," Balani said. "A five-day workshop is a commitment, but you won't get this from a 30-minute DVD."
Balani said she has had people tell her that after several months of the workshops, they've stopped taking medications for their asthma, attention deficit disorder or sleeping disorder. She said these workshops have the ability to prevent diseases later on in life as well.
"Tension and stress and negative thoughts manifest in a disease or a disorder later on in life through cell memory and that's why doing this cleanses yourself internally," Balani said. "You bathe everyday to cleanse outside, you must cleanse inside as well.
The Art of Living Foundation, a nonprofit education and humanitarian organization, was founded in 1981 by spiritual leader Sri Sri Ravi Shankar. It's currently one of the United Nations' largest volunteer-based non-governmental organizations.
"It offers workshops and seminars to teach you how to breathe," Balani said. "It's not a religious organization. It welcomes people from all walks of life and teaches you to live better by learning to breathe better."
"The Art of Living Foundation offers programs to uncover the strength, peace and joy that lie at the core of every human being," according to its Web site.
These workshops are taught in 150 countries, and more than 6 million people have been affected by the breathing exercises, Balani said.
"I always say that the mind is like the kite, the string is like the breath, you can control your thoughts and your breath and choose to be happy," Balani said. "Happiness is a choice."
The workshop will be taught by Mona Shah, an international traveling teacher who has been teaching for the past 17 years.
"[Shah] not only teaches students, but trains others teachers to teach college students," Balani said. "It took an entire year to get her to have faith in USC, because she doesn't teach small workshops, but more than 15 people have already signed up."
Balani said these workshops equip the participants with tools and techniques to empower their lives and become more responsible.
"On a larger scale, it also makes you a more responsible global citizen," she said. "It also makes us aware. We live our whole lives without being aware. It's very easy to lead these situations, everyone just needs to learn a technique to do it."
Liz Segrist
News Editor
The Daily Gamecock
For University of South Carolina
http://media.www.dailygamecock.com/media/storage/paper247/news/2009/03/20/News/FiveDay.Yoga.Class.Aims.To.Improve.Lives-3677298.shtml
Don't just stare at me, come take a dive. 
