She may have exams, but UVA nursing student Ella Silvestro is keeping her cool, thanks to study sessions with friends and a little kitten yoga.
“I think this is a great time to do it,” says Silvestro, who has two cats back home in Long Island, NY, and tossed a feather jingle toy to Lester and Ronnie, two five-month-old litter mates, “and I was more inclined to sign up, knowing it would help me destress before a lot of exams.”
As Silvestro and her sock-wearing classmates bend into cat and cow poses, four kittens— Lester, Ronnie, Tippy, and Tux— scamper after toys, thread through legs, and sniff, pounce, and groom.
Student Nora Costello welcomes the distraction.
“I had an exam this morning, and then, we have a skills checkoff for, like, our nursing skills at the end of the week,” says Costello, from Virginia Beach. “I’m really excited to get to play with kittens again.”
Relay Active owner Ann Mazur leads the class. She says kitten yoga attracts all breeds.
“Literally, we have had every demographic of person come to this class,” says Mazur, a former Olympic trials marathoner who’s taught yoga for the last 17 years. “You have other yoga classes where it’s a very 20- to 30-year-old white lady, you know, who comes to yoga. And we have everyone come to kitten yoga.”
The class isn’t just for laughs, though.
“When you can do it in a group, you’re also fostering social connection,” says UVA professor Natalie May, part of the Compassionate Care Initiative, which organized the event. “The adage that we keep hearing is that being lonely is as bad as smoking a pack of cigarettes a day. We just want to foster connection.”
Mazur fosters kittens at home, including tonight’s litter. The class is catnip for adoptions, too. In two years of teaching kitten yoga, nearly 50 shelter cats got new homes.
“Animals in general are so good for people’s mental and emotional health, I’m probably going to cry,” says Mazur. “Life is so short and people are mean. Cats are great!”
Mazur’s kitten yoga happens a half-dozen times each month.