Dubai Prisons To Help Inmates’ Lives With Yoga

A prison programme wants to help inmates with their trauma through yoga and meditation

Posted on

11 October 2018

| Last updated on 11 October 2018

A real-life Orange is The New Black moment, prisoners in Dubai will soon breathe out the negativity and focus on positive rehabilitation.

Prisoners are often overlooked when they should be given opportunities to deal with trauma and get the correct rehabilitation in order to move forward in and out of prison.

And in efforts to help prisoners in Dubai, the Prison Stress Management and Rehabilitation Training (Prison Smart) wants to do just that – it wants to give inmates a positive outlook on their life with the help of yoga.

Hundreds of prisoners in Dubai-based prisons will receive training on healing methods to combat their trauma and to help lead self-changing lives. Yoga, pranayama and other breathing techniques are set to improve their mental and physical health.

This will help with depression, anxiety and personal conflicts to provide inmates with the clear-thinking, alertness and resilience needed to improve their mental immunity and physical well-being.

Benefits of yoga and meditation

Yoga is an ancient method of meditation that incorporates breathing and relaxation to reduce stress and bring positive energy. It has many benefits to the mental and physical well-being of a person, here are 4 of them:

1. Relieves anxiety – it focuses on being in the present and in the moment, which brings on a sense of peace.
2. Fights depression – it helps to decrease levels of cortisol, which is a stress hormone
3. Promotes sleep quality – it helps to increase levels of melatonin, which is a hormone that regulates sleep
4. Decreases stress – it helps by decreasing cortisol and fights depression

Inmate rehabilitation in Dubai

Prison Smart has also helped Dubai prisons acquire new skills to aid them with life outside of the prisons and break the cycle of violence, abuse and return.

With efforts such as these, inmates in Dubai have reported that their sleep, thinking and sense of responsibility have improved.

Their overall sentiment towards prison life has also been uplifted with the granted opportunity to lead a better life – especially to those who are serving longer sentences in prison.