Yoga's benefits go well beyond the confines of a practice studio as the discipline has literally helped one woman get back on her feet and inspired a desire to help others.
Angkana Srikasem was a thriving businesswoman until a freak dancing mishap left her paralysed and in need of months of hospital care.
As rehabilitative care failed to make much progress, she thought she would never walk again, and began to fear for the worst.
Her life changed, however, when a friend suggested she try yoga. Those exercises and routines not only improved her recovery, but helped her state of mind. They also persuaded her to help others who might be trapped in bodies which no longer work or are afflicted by illnesses, which leave them thinking about their fate and even whether to press on with their lives.
Ms Angkana's turnaround in fortunes, while welcome, marks a dramatic change from the career trajectory she had embarked on not so many years ago before her dancing accident.
She was pursuing a talent for jewellery and fashion design, but until her brush with fate had yet to discover yoga and with it a desire to help others who fall down on their luck.
Ms Angana said she knew she had a mind for business since finishing high school. She knew what clothes to wear to match with which jewellery pieces. She was bursting with creative ideas about how to sell the whole package together.
That was her calling. Without any hesitation, Ms Angkana, nicknamed Sam, went straight from high school to studying gemology at the Asian Institute of Gemological Sciences in Bangkok and also attended a tourism course at Silpakorn University. In her free time she also joined classes at the Ngam Wilai dressmaking school in Bangkok.
Ms Angkana grew up in favourable circumstances. Her parents ran a construction firm in Chachoengsao before the family moved to Bangkok where the children attended school.
"I took some courses in design, especially in jewellery. I happened to be good at it and so after graduation, I went into jewellery and design, which made me lots of money," she said.
A free spirit, Ms Angkana travelled extensively with friends. During one of her trips overseas, she visited Dubai in the United Arab Emirates where her entrepreneurial radar immediately went off.
Dubai has one of the most lucrative markets for upscale clothes and jewellery. To Ms Angkana, it was a goldmine of opportunities and so she moved there to set up her own business importing and designing clothes, which quickly turned a profit.
Her private and professional lives were going well. She drove a BMW convertible and was a regular guest at exclusive nightclubs. In her free time, she played golf and danced as a hobby.
However, the glamour was soon to end. During a night out at a dance club, she danced with a partner who was out of sync with her steps and moves. "We had never paired up before. It seemed okay at the beginning," she said.
The pair held hands tightly as they moved around on the floor. Her dance partner was a tall, large man who dwarfed her and was apparently unaware of his own strength. In one move, the man whirled her around and flung her across the floor with such force that she hit the wall.
Ms Angkana did not realise the extent of her injuries until the next morning when she found she was immobile from the waist down. The doctor told her she suffered a spine injury. "I thought I was going to die right there," she said.
After an operation, she was confined to her bed for two months. She underwent regular physical therapy where she she had to learn to walk again. "I was wobbling with tears rolling down my cheeks. I blamed bad luck," said the businesswoman.
The slow pace of her recovery pushed her ever deeper into despair and fuelled suicidal thoughts.
"A full month of therapy couldn't help me. The thought that I would never walk again kept going back and forth in my mind," she said.
On morning, she stopped by the side of a wide open road in Dubai. As she staggered across to the other side, she wished a car would hit her.
At her lowest ebb, she thought of her family. When she heard about her ordeal, her mother caught the first available flight out of Bangkok to care for Ms Angkana in Dubai.
They soon returned to Thailand where her mother was to help her start rebuilding her life.
After resettling in Bangkok, a friend urged Ms Angkana to join a yoga class to help her get better.
She said that thanks to yoga, she was able to regain not only her walking ability faster than hospital therapy but the workouts also improved her state of mind, which let her see life in a new perspective.
"You may not believe that I once punched a man who teased me. But that hasn't happened since I opened the door to yoga," she said.
By then, Ms Angkana's fascination with yoga had taken her to the capital of yoga, Rishikesh, in India where attended courses studying everything from philosophy and the body, to respiratory functions and meditation. These disciplines combined help define what yoga is and does.
An apprentice of yoga gurus in India, Ms Angkana has travelled back and forth between Thailand and India where she spends five to six months at a time.
Her traumatic experience and the yoga study in India enabled Ms Angkana to look inward where she found another calling, one where she helps others in need as she was once herself.
"Indeed, yoga is a miracle science that has changed me. What I want to do is teach yoga and pass on the happiness to those in need," she said.
Ms Angkana, 47, opened a yoga studio called "Samsara Yoga" in Bangkok in late 2013, where she is also an instructor. However, she offers some courses for free, and she teaches elsewhere as well.
An elderly persons centre, Pluen Wai in Kannayao district, is where she has put her sense of purpose to most use.
The centre provides community support to elderly folk who feel isolated at home or do not have family to look after them.
Elderly gather there for group activities including yoga, which Ms Angkana started offering nearly two years ago.
Ms Angkana first learned about the centre from one of her students. The student told her the centre was set up by an elderly woman who wanted a place where folks can meet and ease their loneliness.
The word "loneliness" struck her hard. It brought back memories of her plight in Dubai and how being alone with her thoughts had breathed despair into her life, taking her to the verge of suicide.
However, it was her elderly mother who came to her rescue and showed how yoga could lift her up physically and spiritually.
So, her quest to create a sense of purpose for herself revolved around the key words: elderly, loneliness and of course, yoga.
Having said that, Ms Angkana said she had no hesitation signing up to teach yoga at the centre for free.
She learned some elderly folks were depressed and suffering various illnesses.
She thought yoga could do for the elderly folks what it has done for her. There is a story behind every yoga lesson, she has learned.
For yoga to be fully enjoyed and therapeutic, the atmosphere in the class must be cheerful, according to Ms Angkana, adding she treats her elderly students like family.
"I wear full make-up when I teach them, so I look good. The folks need to be made to feel willing and able to do the yoga for health's sake," she added.
Ms Angkana teaches yoga at the centre once a month.
Manee Limsakul, 74, one of the students, said she has been practising yoga for six months now and finds it has eased a chronic backache condition.
"Khru (teacher) Sam said I should practice basic yoga at home as well," she said.
Sakorn Rungreung, 63, said the yoga lesson was easy to follow and his aching knee was feeling better.
Liam, an 82 year-old grandma, said "Khru Sam" keeps the elderly folk in fine spirits with her cheerful personality, words of encouragement and beauty.
The basic yoga routines take care of aches and pains left from her years working in construction, said Ms Liam, although she admits that doing a body bend is no piece of cake for a woman her age.
For Ms Angkana, yoga can be an agent of happiness that can be passed around.
