Love Reigns Supreme: The yoga studio in Portobello easing loneliness through its creation of a warm community.

The benefits of yoga for health and well-being are boundless, but the Love Supreme Projects yoga studio and the WYKD organisation are also forging connected communities through the ancient practice.

Shanti means eternal peace for all mankind in Sanskrit, I discovered whilst leafing through a stack of yoga flashcards in the Love Supreme Projects lobby, sipping on their complimentary chai tea.

I had come to the yoga studio on a Tuesday afternoon after googling “yoga near me” from my bed the previous night, feeling lonely and overwhelmed by London. Having recently moved to the capital from rural Wiltshire to study, drawn by the opportunities and excitement, I was struggling to adapt.

When chatting with other students from the yoga studio, I found that I was not alone in my loneliness. “I was overwhelmed by the unlimited choices of London and the pressure to make the most of the city,” Ana, a Criminology master’s student at London Met admitted. Abi, a master’s student at Kings College, comments it is over time that “you learn to find pockets of home,” including the Love Supreme Projects studio.

After scrolling through the endless Google results of “yoga near me,” the Love Supreme Project’s website and Instagram revealed a welcoming sense of community and offered a free class in collaboration with WYKD. The studio opened in 2022 after the pandemic on the principle of the need to be together, using yoga as a tool to alleviate the loneliness and disconnect the pandemic brought. The Sunday Times commented on their “generosity of spirit” and The Good Life praised this dreamy space “filled with art, strong bodies and kind souls sipping on herbal tea.”

Unsure, I found myself in a whitewashed renovated church on Golborne Road in west London, just round the corner from Portobello market, with sweeping high ceilings and skylights. Once settled on my mat, Mia the instructor guided us into a heart-opening pose.

WYKD is a non-profit collective which provides free yoga and meditation classes to the North Kensington community, believing in the power of yoga to create a unified community. One 2023 study reveals that yoga reduced loneliness in a control group of elderly participants, while a review of the impacts of meditation on loneliness states that “the effects of meditation in alleviating loneliness are promising.” Suzy Cole, a cognitive behaviour therapist explained that “the focus on body and breathing enables you to engage the parasympathetic nervous system which reduces feelings of anxiety.” When this breathing is synchronised within a yoga class, you gain a sense of community and connection.

In Eastern traditions yoga aims to “unite body, mind and spirit,” something WYKD and Love Supreme Projects focus on, also uniting the community. The fact that I could access yoga and this community for free, is a true return to the roots of yoga.

At the end of the practice, Mia encouraged us to bring our hearts, whether they be heavy or burdened by the world, to the mat and carve out some time for peace. As I looked around the class at the variety of people united by movement and breath, I felt lucky to have found a little pocket of community and shanti and felt a little bit less lonely.