How Restaurant Workers Rely on Yoga to Ease Stress + Aches

“], “filter”: { “nextExceptions”: “img, blockquote, div”, “nextContainsExceptions”: “img, blockquote, a.btn, a.o-button”} }”>

They say if you can’t take the heat, get out of the kitchen. But for restaurant staffers constantly exposed to long shifts, demanding customers, and an unrelenting pace, that’s not an option—unless they make space for self-care.

The physical labor, late-night shifts, intense pressure, and proximity to alcohol have long been known to take a toll. According to a 2015 report from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, workers in the restaurant industry were the most at risk for illicit drug use and substance use disorders. They were also third at risk for heavy alcohol use.

That institutionalized drinking culture has been beginning to shift in recent years. Chefs are increasingly outspoken about their struggles with addiction. Also, various organizations attempt to support restaurant staff through wellness programs, some of which include a short team meditation prior to shift as well as training for volunteers interested in supporting their peers.

Yet the vast responsibility for well-being in the service industry remains on the individuals. To better understand how some restaurant staffers cope with constant stressors, we sought out several hospitality workers—including waiters, managers, and a restaurant owner who started his career as a dishwasher—who practice yoga to learn how they rely on the poses and the mindset to ease their work-related concerns.

5 Ways Restaurant Workers Rely on Yoga

Although the specific stressors facing an individual vary by workplace, the following are the most common concerns that we heard from service industry staff well as specific ways yoga supports them after—and during—their shifts.

1. Finding Relief From Emotional + Physical Fatigue

Shortly after Jung Kim graduated from college, her family opened Woojung Sushi in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. For years, Kim spent nights, weekends, and holidays working alongside her mom while juggling a career as a full-time healthcare tech and squeezing in yoga teaching on the side.

Problem: “Your body hurts because you are standing and moving and lifting,” explains Kim. “And I think there’s also a weight-bearing element to handling people’s nonsense.”

Pose: Head To-Knee Pose. Sitting on the floor with one leg straight and the other bent as you lean forward from the hips targets the muscles along the entire back body, including those along the spine. “It helps with your lower back,” says Kim. She notes the pose’s ability to target the tricky quadratus lumborum (QL) muscles, which stabilize the spine and pelvis during long days of standing and carrying heavy loads.

Larger Practice: A yoga teacher, Kim knows that she doesn’t need to resign herself to carrying the weight of others’ emotions. She explains that her yoga practice extends beyond the mat and into her every interaction at work or otherwise. “Yoga is not just poses. That’s actually, like 1/8 of one time,” says Kim. “Sometimes it’s creating space. It could be taking a full breath.”

2. Easing Achy Feet After Standing for Hours

When she’s not working the front desk or sweating it out in class at Portland Power Yoga in Portland, Maine, Juliet Plouff waits tables and trains in management at the vegetarian bistro, Green Elephant. By the time she gets home at night, Plouff is feeling the effects of being on her feet all day.

Problem: After years of standing most of the day, Plouff gets “crazy knots” under the balls of her feet. “Especially if I’m working a double, my feet just hurt so bad at the end of it,” she says.

Pose: Toe Pose. Plouff likes to start by sitting on her heels with her feet together in Thunderbolt (Vajrasana). Then she leans her body slightly forward until she can tuck all her toes underneath. The stretch can be intense. Plouff lingers here for a few minutes or, depending on the day, for “as long as I can.”

Practice: Although she’s at work most of the day, Plouff is immersed in yoga vibes during her morning shifts at the studio. Then she heads into the restaurant mid to late afternoon. After her shift ends around 10:30 pm, she likes to “zonk out and watch TV” while doing yoga to chill out.

3. Falling Asleep When You’re Still Wired + Aching

Yoga teacher Jenny Schubert is accustomed to being on her feet for 14-hour stretches as the manager of Davio’s Northern Italian Steakhouse in Lynnfield, Massachusetts. But that doesn’t make the emotional or physical experience any easier.

Problem: “You’ll get off at midnight and you’ll be exhausted, but with the amount of cortisol and adrenaline your body just released to get you through that shift, your brain is still wired,” explains Schubert. That after-shift also brings aches that were ignored during shift. Before she completed her 500-hour yoga teacher training, Schubert’s final project involved asking hospitality workers where they hurt the most. Most often they said their lower back and ankles.

Pose: Legs Up The Wall (Viparita Karani). Schubert places blankets under her sacrum, swings her legs up the wall, and then settles into the restorative yoga pose. If she’s “really feeling it,” Schubert says she will cover her eyes or place a blanket on her abdomen for additional grounding and soothing. “That’s definitely my after-work favorite,” she says.

Practice: Schubert also practices other restorative poses in order to “be able to calm down enough to go to sleep.” These supported postures such as this require no physical exertion have been shown to facilitate coping with anxiety and stress by shifting the body into the parasympathetic nervous system, which is the opposite of fight or flight.

4. Prioritizing Your Own Needs

Ricardo Astudillo Carrion started as a dishwasher when he arrived in the U.S. from Ecuador almost two decades ago. He recently opened his own place, Margot Bar & Bistro, in Miami, Florida.

Problem: The “go-go-go” nature of the hospitality industry makes Carrion feel like he’s “never stopping.” About a year ago, he found himself feeling physically as well as mentally unwell.

Pose: Standing Forward Fold (Uttanasana). Standing with his legs slightly apart, Carrion stretches his arms overhead and then bends at the hip and leans forward, resting his hands behind his legs and letting his shoulders and neck relax. “When I let my air out, my back starts cracking,” says Carrion. “It feels amazing.”

Practice: Encouraged by his wife, Carrion began practicing yoga when he wasn’t feeling well and ended up losing unwanted pounds. Now, he relies on yoga in the morning before his shift to help him feel more even-keeled mentally as well as when he feels stiff. His practice has gotten him to the point where he has the physical and mental strength and stamina for Headstand.

5. Easing Lower Back Pain

This past summer, Tess Riley pulled 13-hour shifts at the Mule Barn Tavern on the Jersey Shore. Although she’s currently back to working full-time in the yoga studio, she’s about to start a new gig at a pizzeria.

Problem: Lengthy shifts left Riley in frequent discomfort. “Your knees, your shins, your ankles are feeling it,” she explains. But she adds that it’s also mental stress. To this day, she has a recurring nightmare that the restaurant fills up and she’s the only person working.

Pose: Bridge Pose (Setu Bandha Sarvangasana). Lying on her back with her knees bent and feet on the floor, Riley lifts her hips and places a block or some stacked pillows beneath her sacrum. Then she releases her weight into the support and relaxes. “Anything to take the pressure off of my hips,” she explains, noting that the pose helps her with stomach bloating, as well.

Practice: Riley also practices other backbends, including Low Lunge (Anjaneyasana) with her hands clasped overhead, as well as a lot of twisting poses to relieve back tension. She also treasures her meditation practice, which benefits her both during and after her shift by allowing her to “let all of that go and just be present in that one moment.”