On This Congressman's Policy Agenda: Yoga, Mindfulness, and Salad Bars

Rep. Tim Ryan (D-OH) at a Down Dog Yoga event in Washington. D.C., which raised money for the Wounded Warrior Project. (Photo courtesy of Tim Ryan)

Congressman Tim Ryan is no stranger to stress. After he was elected in 2002 to represent Ohio in the U.S. House of Representatives at the age of 29, he watched his stress levels rise every day without fail, like a tide under a full moon.

But he realized something. On days that he practiced mindfulness, he was less stressed and more focused, his days seemed to go smoother, and he handled adversity better. This led him to go on a silent retreat several years later, in 2008, at the Menla Mountain House that happened to be led by meditation master Jon Kabat-Zinn. Ryan recognized Kabat-Zinn as the author of the book Coming to Our Senses: Healing Ourselves and the World Through Mindfulness, which had been sent to all members of Congress years before.

Things haven’t been the same since then.

Today, Ryan is a sort of “enlightened congressman” — a man who’s made it his mission to make wellness of both mind and body a priority in this country. He makes sure to have a daily dose of meditation, lasting anywhere from 15 to 45 minutes depending on his schedule, and also aims to get in two to three yoga classes each week (supplemented with strength-training and cardio workouts that improve his yoga practice). He also invites his staff to join him for yoga and meditation sessions, led by different teachers.

In 2012, he penned A Mindful Nation, and traveled cross-country visiting schools and research facilities to document how these institutions use mindfulness to relieve stress, improve performance, and possibly contribute to a reduction in health-care costs down the road. His findings led him to raise $3.6 million in grant money for the Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction study, a five-year study on how meditation helps reduce high blood pressure. He’s also introduced legislation to teach mindfulness practices to veterans with Project Welcome Home Troops and in classrooms with The Academic, Social and Emotional Learning Act.

Related: How Meditation Can Improve Your Career

Ryan with children at the Mill Creek Children’s Center in Youngstown, Ohio, where he was promoting health, wellness, and social and emotional learning. (Photo courtesy of Tim Ryan)

While researching his second book, Real Food Revolution — which former President Bill Clinton describes as “a much-needed prescription to help transform our country’s food systems and improve our well-being” — Ryan says he realized that “our food is making us sick and we need to change that or our children’s quality of life will be severely diminished.” So after the book was released in 2014, he introduced two acts: the Salad Bar in Schools Expansion Act, through which he hopes to get a salad bar into every school to encourage kids to eat healthy, and the Enrich Act, to emphasize the importance of health prevention by adding nutrition and physical activity to medical school curricula.

“Children are not being taught how to pay attention or eat good food at home, and if it’s not happening on that level, then it’s no wonder that most adults don’t know about mindfulness, meditation, or the importance of nutrition,” Ryan tells Yahoo Health.

Related: Meditation Made Easy: 5 Life-Changing Pointers

Ryan giving high-fives to children at the Mill Creek Children’s Center in Youngstown, Ohio. (Photo courtesy of Tim Ryan) 

“We need new ways of doing things in government and business that place value on quality of life and we need to simplify the problems from a government level,” he adds. “We need there to be role models in schools because many of these kids don’t have people at home teaching them to eat healthy and how to relieve anxiety so that they can become a vibrant, energetic, clear-thinking, connected member of society.”

So how can we help this political change-maker spread his wellness mission? “People who support this approach have got to get actively involved on school boards and with state reps; they need to get engaged because they understand these issues, are smart and well connected in their communities. That’s how we do this on a grand scale — a bunch of parents who care about health and mental wellness,” Ryan says. “If that happens across the country, then every candidate will be talking about mental and physical health because they know that’s what people across the country want.”

Read This Next: Learn To Meditate By The End Of This Post

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