A career that gives this Yum! senior comms analyst room to stretch — and sweat

Image provided by Alison Cox.

Alison Cox can stand the heat. Twice a week, she teaches a power yoga class in a room heated to almost 100 degrees Fahrenheit. She can handle metaphorical heat, too, using breathing techniques from her yoga practice to steady herself during high-stress situations.

She's had seven years to acclimate to the extreme temperatures. This month marks Cox's seventh anniversary as a yoga instructor, and for five of those years, she's also managed social media and analyzed online conversations for Yum! Brands in Louisville, Kentucky. But long before she learned to balance a full-time career with teaching yoga on nights and weekends, she had to learn to balance on a mat.

"I've never been an athlete," Cox said, admitting that she first started going to the gym simply to get out of her parents' house after graduating from college.

She tried a few group exercise classes and kept coming back for the community, but yoga was different.

"I really love the flexibility of it," she said. "You're able to make your yoga practice what you want it to be. You can lay on your mat for 60 minutes, or you can make it as hard as you want it to be. Both are yoga."

After a year of practicing at her local gym, Cox transitioned to 502 Power Yoga Studio to try hot yoga and quickly became a regular. Eventually, showing up for class wasn't enough. She wanted to teach it.

Cox completed more than 200 hours of training and earned her teaching certification in spring 2019. Seven years later, she's mastered challenging poses like crow, balancing her body weight on her hands with her knees resting on her upper arms. But ask her for a favorite pose, and she'll choose something much simpler: child's pose, which she loves for the stretch it provides her back.

That preference reflects something Cox appreciates about yoga more broadly. There's always room to push yourself, but there's also permission to slow down.

"Sharing yoga with others is something I really love," she said. "That's why I became a teacher, because I want more people to do this. Our studio has a great community; we're really close-knit, so it's like having a second family."

Still, her two worlds occasionally overlap. Cox sometimes invites her Yum! coworkers to her classes, intentionally bringing the communities together, and Yum! once invited her to lead a meditation class for above-restaurant employees.

More often, though, it's the lessons from yoga that follow Cox into her workday.

"There are so many different types of breathing that you can do," she said. "Like when you're in a tough meeting or if you're having just a rough day, you're able to tap into your breath."

One technique Cox uses is Ujjayi breathing, also known as Victorious Breath, a practice that involves slow, controlled breathing through the nose. For Cox, it's a tool she can turn to whether she's in the studio, sitting at her computer or navigating a stressful moment.

"That's one thing I like to encourage people to do at work, outside of work, everywhere really," Cox said. "You have your breath, just use that. Any time I'm feeling frustrated, stressed or just need a break, I just step away from my computer and breathe."

That ability to remain mindful serves Cox well on Yum!'s Proactive Storytelling team. But there's another lesson from yoga that carries into her day job: discipline. Ironically, Cox says that's also the part she finds most difficult.

"The hardest part of yoga is just showing up and rolling out your mat," she said. "Getting to the studio after you've had a long day or first thing in the morning, it's hard. It takes commitment. The benefits are great, but I think the hardest part is just getting started."

Cox has certainly done her share of showing up. She recently taught her 700th class at 502 Power Yoga, a milestone that comes just ahead of her seventh anniversary as an instructor and one that makes her smile.

"I feel accomplished after I step off of my mat," she said. "Whether I lay on my mat for 60 minutes or go into a hot, sweaty class for an hour and work my butt off, I get a great feeling of accomplishment."

But for Cox, the real value of yoga may be what happens after she steps off the mat.

"Yoga gives you tools to use in between classes," she said. "When you go into your workday or your family life, you're breathing and meditating - that's all stuff that you can incorporate into your day-to-day life."

Which may explain why, after 700 classes, Cox still doesn't consider yoga a side hustle. The class may end when she walks out of that 100-degree room, but the practice follows her everywhere - especially when the heat is on.