FARMINGTON – Scott Sinay takes a full load of classes at the University of Maine at Farmington. He’s also an athlete, and he has other obligations.

Yes, he knows stress. But the 22-year-old senior from Farmington has a solution.

He practices yoga, the ancient Hindu relaxation exercise, to take care of himself.

“We collect stress” in our bodies, said Sinay, a yoga instructor at UMF’s Health and Fitness Center, and the stress acts like glue. Yoga “breaks that glue up,” Sinay explained. “Most illnesses come when people are out of focus with what their body needs. You have to take care of yourself because, essentially, no one else is going to.”

It all starts with breathing. In a yoga class, students lie on mats and practice breathing exercises while trying to achieve difficult stretches. Sinay explained that as you breathe in through your nose, you pull your legs and arms inward into poses that allow you to feel the breath deep in your abdomen. As you breathe out, you stretch your arms and legs “to their full capacity.”

The objective of yoga is to be on the edge of the pain, not to experience it. “Afterward, your body feels calm,” explained Sinay. “It’s kind of like your own self-massage.”

Yoga started out as a method of healing the body, Sinay said. When people focus on breathing, it helps them focus on themselves. It helps them feel they are “in the moment.” That’s especially important to busy people, “so that they essentially don’t lose themselves in what’s going on around them,” he said.

In everyday life, he says yoga helps him “accept things.” Then, when he finds himself in a stressful situation, he can let it go more easily.

The major difference between yoga and other physical activities is that stress is not involved. It’s not about being better than someone else; it’s about focusing on yourself, said Sinay, “for the better of your entire well-being.”

He advises beginners to avoid attitudes of competitiveness or frustration before engaging in yoga. If mental-relaxation techniques like these are going to work, a person has to crave the peace that the activity promises.

No matter how much time people have in their schedules, yoga is doable, he said. “Just 30 minutes a week is a good start.”