From high stress to headstands: Hyderabad techies quit corporate jobs to become yoga teachers; here's what they say

HYDERABAD: Even as corporate India grapples with whether to work 70 hours a week or not, many young professionals in Hyderabad are making a mid-career shift and becoming full-time yoga instructors. If it means a pay cut, so be it. Those 15-hour workdays packed with PowerPoint presentations, deadlines and unending meetings have finally got to them.TOI spoke to many techies who have swapped high-pressure jobs for the calm, flexible life of full-time yoga.Mrudula Neelam, 31, was a techie with a major corporate and spent nearly four years buried in spreadsheets and regulatory frameworks at a multinational firm. "My body just couldn't take the 14-15 hour work days any more," she says. "I was constantly sick and stressed. The turning point came during 'Wellness Fridays' at her workplace, where she began teaching yoga to colleagues. Already certified, she started taking it more seriously. A scholarship for an Ashtanga immersion course in Bali sealed the deal. "It all shifted from being a weekend side hustle to a full-time career for me."Mrudula now runs classes from her online studio, teaches in-person sessions, and even travels to retreats and workshops in other cities.The beauty is I can work from anywhere. I don’t have to choose between career and well-being anymore,” Mrudula says, adjusting her teaching schedule around travel and personal time.Sri Harika, 30, another techie, had a similar path. After working in corporate compliance for two years, she decided to pursue a master’s in Yoga Shastra. Today, she’s a certifi ed yoga therapist working with cancer survivors, clients battling anxiety, and students with bipolar disorder. Her sessions aren’t one-size-fi ts-all. “Each person comes with a unique body and story,” she says. “Someone may be dealing with sleep disorders, someone else with hormonal imbalance.”She often spends her mornings leading breath-work sessions and her evenings fi ne-tuning restorative sequences, a far cry from her days in a corporate cubicle.The money, though not sky-high, is steady. Instructors on average charge anywhere between ₹2,000 and ₹3,000 every month per student for group class, while personal sessions can range from ₹2,000 to ₹4,000 per session. With four to fi ve batches a day and about 10 students per class, teachers are pulling in enough to sustain a comfortable lifestyle, minus the stress.This steady reward also led Neetu Kariyangat, 43, who was in tech for nearly two decades before she hit pause. “I was done with the targets, the burnout,” she says. In May, she completed her teacher training course and now teaches from her apartment and at a yoga institute. “I feel lighter, emotionally, mentally, physically. I’ve even lost four kilos and breathing better,” she laughs.After five years of hopping between corporate jobs in search of peace and stability, Ramya Krishna, 38, decided to turn her passion for yoga into a full-time career. “I worked with MNCs, took up freelancing and various gigs, but none of them gave me peace. In fact, all those made me feel worse,” she says.To cope, she began practicing yoga and casually shared her journey on social media. The response was unexpected, people reached out, curious to know if she was taking classes. What began with a handful of students gradually grew, and today, Ramya runs yoga classes in Banjara Hills, training nearly 200 students daily.For Sharmila Hiremdernath, the journey of fi nding her true calling began with switching academic paths—from law to computer science. But it was during her pregnancy, while pursuing her computer science degree, that she discovered yoga. “Through that phase, I began practicing yoga, and it just stayed with me. Slowly, people began approaching me for classes,” she says. Today, she trains 250 students and mentors aspiring yoga instructors.Sharmila has observed a growing trend: Many professionals are turning to yoga not just as a passion project, but as a career option. “A lot of them are starting off with it as a side hustle also and eventually planning to make it full-time,” she says.Apart from techies, students and homemakers are also rolling out their mats with new intent. Mumtaz Amalani, who spent most of her life as a homemaker, now leads classes at Satva Yoga in Secunderabad as a freelance Yogini. She also holds sessions in her community. “Yoga gave me something I never had — financial freedom and a strong sense of self. I walk into a class now and know I have something valuable to offer,” she adds.A 20-year-old final-year student, is currently pursuing her teacher training certificate at Yoga Nirvana. She says that once she graduates, she is going straight into teaching.