‘Yoga is my thing,’ Meghan Markle recently declared, as she described her health and beauty regime.
And these stunning photographs of Prince Harry’s new fiancé shows she is a woman of her word.
The royal bride-to-be has been practicing the discipline since she was a young girl, thanks to her mother, Doria Ragland, who is an instructor in their home town of LA.
Miss Markle, 36, who will marry Harry at Windsor Castle in May, devotes a couple of hours to her passion a week, whether at home or in a studio.
‘That practice is in my blood,’ she told Canada’s Women’s Health Magazine in 2015, the year before she met the Queen’s grandson.
‘There are so many benefits that come with the practice of yoga…increased flexibility and muscle strength, greater happiness, increased mental focus, a greater ability to relax, decreased anxiety and better sleep.’
While the younger royals – William, Kate and Harry – are all extremely keen on their sport, Kensington Palace is unlikely to have seen anything like the ultra-flexible Miss Markle before.
The prince’s intended says she also loves running but has found it more of a strain as she gets older.
Nowadays, she reveals, her ‘perfect’ day would involve waking up late, taking her dogs for a walk before doing some yoga and then enjoying a sashimi lunch. Prince Harry take note!
Ellen Lee, chairman of the Independent Yoga Network, an organisation for yoga teachers and training schools, who has practised the discipline for 41 years, praises Miss Markle’s ‘strength and flexibility’.
She said: ‘Interestingly the poses in all four pictures are, technically, back bends.
Because she is obviously a strong, flexible practitioner, people like Meghan generally favour back bending because it has such an effective stretching action on the front of the body.
‘Back bending generally stimulates the nervous system. If your energy is low and you are feeling quite lethargic, particularly if you are sitting at a desk all day, any form of back bending physically and emotionally lifts your heart and your energy.’
She added: ‘The key words that strike me [about her] are strength and flexibility. They are the two things that yoga encourages, physically, and can take a long time to develop.
‘Yoga is an eastern-based practice stretching back thousands of years and is based on promoting a flow of energy through the body. All of these poses ensure Meghan’s heart is being lifted.
‘It is a lovely thing to see.’
