LONG periods steering their tractors can leave farmers a little restless but Chris Wills has the perfect remedy – tractor yoga.
Mr Wills trained as a pastry chef when he left school, but was lured back to farm life and has been doing yoga for about three years.
“I was sent kicking and screaming by my partner Heidi when it was on in our local hall for farmers with a bad back,” he said.
“I thought it couldn’t do me any harm. I became interested in yoga, the fact it was doing me good and I suppose how it had developed and became what it is today in its many forms.”
Chris Wills explains the benefits of yoga in the Glove Box Guide to Mental Health. The fifth edition of the guide, produced by Fairfax Media in partnership with the Rural Adversity Mental Health Program and the Centre for Rural and Remote Mental Health, is free with this week’s edition of The Land newspaper.
With the theme of #serviceyourmind, the 64-page guide tells the stories of people in regional and rural NSW who have lived with mental illness. They offer advice for staying mentally healthy.
Mr Wills, who farms near Greenthorpe in central-west NSW, shares some of the pretty impressive yoga moves he’s devised – all modified for the tractor, of course.
“An asana you would do on a mat has been modified to fit into the confines of wherever you are, whether in the sheep yards or on a tractor,” he said.
“The important thing is controlling the mind and body through breath. Breath is yogic breath - in through the nose and out through the nose with a slight constriction through in the back of your throat which gives you a soothing vibration throughout your body.”
Mr Wills said the stretches in yoga were good for farmers.
“It’s an opportunity to stretch and take a bit of time when you’re busy to get a little bit of relaxation, I suppose,” he said. “Tractor yoga is about making yoga available to a group who would, on the whole, not consider it something that they would do.
“Being able to steel your mind, and take that chatter that is non-productive out, through breathing is a benefit. Whether I’m calm or not, I don’t know. I feel very calm.”
The Glove Box Guide to Mental Health also offers professional advice and contacts. It was launched this week in Orange by NSW Minister for Mental Health Pru Goward, Centre for Rural and Remote Mental Health director David Perkins and The Land editor Andrew Norris.
