When the air outside (and often inside) is so cold it makes your bones hurt and your spirit sag, don’t limit your exercise to mindless treadmill pounding and dumbbell lifting. Yoga has many loyal followers, and there are plenty of places here to ease your mind and stretch your body.

Dr. Eric Yue, senior physical therapist at Shanghai United Family Hospital, touts the many health benefits of yoga: “From medical to pure well-being improvement, its practice has been recorded as one of the most ancient physical therapies in the medical world. We could write a never-ending list of benefits.” The doctor says your heart, cardiopulmonary system, muscles, skin, metabolism and psyche all profit from yoga.

It’s at Red Door Yoga that Alexandra Carpenter, a 26-year-old American, centers herself when work gets too much. “I’m not super new-agey, but when you’re really stressed out, taking time to meditate, clear your head and focus some energy on your body can really set you straight and make you more centered and productive.”

Australian designer Elishia Whitchurch has been going to Yoga 109 for five months and started because she found the gym terribly boring and work stress was getting to her. “I was drawn to the idea of a more holistic approach to well-being that didn’t just focus on exercise but gave me a chance to pause in an otherwise hectic day and unscramble my mind a bit.”

We’re yoga virgins and wondered whether all that breathing and chanting could really help us release a boatload of tension. Before heading to a class, we consulted Dr. Yue, who said, “Since there are so many styles and variations, [yoga] can always be adapted for everyone’s needs and goals. The secret here is to start progressively in a personalized way. Set realistic goals and follow them.”

We took an hour-and-a-half class with an instructor, Dominique (you can contact her via email - kazu.koikeda@gmail.com), who was happy to let us go our own way, badly reproducing her poses and sometimes unable to do them at all. Yoga is a lot of work, and anyone who thinks it’s easy is kidding themselves. You’re contorting your body into pretzel-like shapes, you’re trying to focus on your breathing and you’re digging your hands into the mat, trying to avoid falling over. Did we feel more centered and balanced after the class? Not really. Physically though, it’s a great workout. Our muscles were still sore two days later. We’ll be back.

Are you a yoga devotee? Where do you go to balance, stretch and flex those muscles?

Check out our listing of Shanghai's yoga studios.