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Meditation and yoga key to becoming a better mum, says Nadya Hutagalung

SINGAPORE — Eco-activist and media personality Nadya Hutagalung swears by making time to take 20 deep breaths, at least once a day. This, she said, can turn you into a better person — and a better parent.

Eco-activist and media personality Nadya Hutagalung swears by making time to take 20 deep breaths, at least once a day. Photo: Wong Casandra/TODAY

Eco-activist and media personality Nadya Hutagalung swears by making time to take 20 deep breaths, at least once a day. Photo: Wong Casandra/TODAY

SINGAPORE — Eco-activist and media personality Nadya Hutagalung swears by making time to take 20 deep breaths, at least once a day. This, she said, can turn you into a better person — and a better parent.

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“I find yoga (and meditation) very helpful for me to reconnect with (myself),” she said. It helps “release any tensions”, she added.

“(With) the stresses of being a modern working mum, we don’t often realise what the body does to help us cope,” said Hutagalung, who has three children.

The 42-year-old was in Singapore on Tuesday (May 16) to help launch a new boutique yoga studio, The Yoga School. Hutagalung, who lives in Bali, is its brand ambassador.

The former MTV VJ is a fan of yin yoga — a style of yoga which sees practitioners holding postures for as long as five minutes. She practises yin once a week, combining it with other “soft and nurturing” cardio practices, including pilates and walking.

Hutagalung is also a big believer in meditation, thanks to its ability to help practitioners “press the ‘pause’ button”. She revealed that she has been meditating for some 12 years now.

For her, yoga and meditation have helped in her interactions with her kids, aged from 9 to 22.

“If something happens with my kids, I take time. I go away and I think about it before I react,” she said. That gives her the space to reflect on her immediate, instinctive reaction — and whether it is the right way to deal with the given situation.

She strongly encourages mothers with kids, as well as kids themselves, to pick up yoga or meditation. Practise together, she said, if there are opportunities to do so.

One way to do yoga together with younger children, she said, is to tell stories using the different poses as animal characters. Some yoga postures — whose names are in Sanskrit — are called Camel, Cow, and even Lion. These help make for compelling tales or narratives that can help get kids involved in the practice of yoga.

Unsurprisingly, almost her entire family is involved in yoga and meditation, in one way or another.

Her youngest, Nyla, 9, does yoga and meditates. She also occasionally helps lead classes at the Green School in Bali. Hutagalung is a former board member of the non-profit and private school.

Once a week, Hutagalung and her husband take turns to lead meditation classes for parents at the school. And her eldest child, Tyrone, 22, also does yoga, which he discovered on his own.

Hutagalung, who shuttles between Indonesia and Singapore, is also a fierce advocate for wildlife and the environment.

She dedicates her time to Let Elephants Be Elephants (LEBE), a project she co-founded with zoologist and author, Dr Tammie Matson. Just last year, LEBE teamed up with global environmental organisation WildAid for an anti-ivory campaign featuring the Thai national football team and Thai martial arts TV star, Tony Jaa.
 More recently in April, LEBE sponsored the costs of running an air ambulance that supports orangutans and elephants in Indonesia.

Currently, she is working on a project that she describes as “once-in-a-lifetime” — one that she has been working on for the past year. It is slated to be announced at the beginning of 2018. 


While tight-lipped on the details, she hints that that the project will “possibly be featured on TV”, with “some aspects of it” about wildlife and the environment.

“It’s hard for me to do something that’s not giving back in that way,” she said.

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