Grazia brings yoga to prison and makes inmates laugh.

GRAZIA BRINGS YOGA TO PRISON

If you want to know a man, don't consider his silence, his tears, his ideas, look how he laughs. Like the famous Russian writer Dostoevsky, also Grace Fortuzzi she is convinced that this is the element that can characterise each of us, whether we are the external manifestation of the soul. For this reason in life he decided to bring the liberating and beneficial power of laughter into an environment where it is too often repressed and confined: the prison. Grazia works as a counselor, a psychological instructor and consultant, and she decided to carry out her "mission" through the yoga.

ALSO READ: The 10 benefits of yoga for the body and mind: it fights depression and is good for the heart.

BENEFITS OF YOGA IN PRISON

His “mission” lasts an hour and a half a week and has the objective of relieve pain, boredom, frustrations, but also the anger related to confinementHis “weapon” is what is called the yoga of laughter which combines the classic Indian discipline with specific exercises aimed at exercising the diaphragm and stimulating joy, which is initially induced but then explodes in all its genuineness. Because, according to Grazia, There's nothing better than laughing for no reasonIt's an exercise that combats anxiety, provides relief, and promotes mutual understanding.

TO KNOW MORE: Laughter Yoga: What It Is and How It Works

WHY YOGA CAN HELP PRISONERS

During these exercises, not only an "intimate" miracle takes place in each of the prisoners but also a "social" one which allows them to come into contact with each other, in an environment where mistrust reigns supreme.. Thus it happens that convicted sex offenders laugh together, hug each other, shake hands. These results are by far the ones that make her most proud because, Even inside prison you are alive and as long as you are alive you can changePerhaps with the help of yoga, which the inmates believe represents an ideal gateway to the outside world, where they can return as soon as possible to laugh even more heartily.

INITIATIVES INVOLVING PRISONERS:

• Swings in Treviso prison to allow inmates to play with their children
• Prison garden, in Ragusa inmates tend it
• Bisonti Rugby, the team born in prison that hopes to return