Here's a multiple choice question it might be worth answering. You've had a stressful, exhausting day at the office and it's a sure thing that tomorrow will bring more of the same. Do you:

a) Set your morning alarm for the latest possible hour to ensure maximum sleep and minimum get-ready-for-work time?

b) Toss and turn all night and then head to the gym at 7.30 a.m. to pound out your frustration on a treadmill? Or,

c) Gently awaken at 5 a.m. so you can practise an hour of still and silent meditation before your fast-paced day begins?

The majority of us, I suspect, regularly plump for variations of 'a' or 'b' and can't quite imagine how 'c' could possibly fit into our hectic routines.

But Joanne Wohlmuth – who launches a ten-week course on meditation at the Integral Yoga Centre in Hamilton on March 18 – insists that meditating each morning can have a profound and positive effect on the rest of your day.

"If you are stressed, most times you are not going to be really sleeping," she cautions those who favour a lie-in.

"You are not going to rest physically, as well as mentally. You end up getting up feeling even more stressed. If you get up and you just take that time to sit and focus the mind, then you begin to settle the mind with the meditation practice.

"All of a sudden, everything seems to rest. The mind rests, the heart rests, the body rests. Once that happens, you are in that place of ease that if you were to lie down thereafter, you would probably have a much more restful sleep."

It sounds delightful – but sceptics might question how sitting still and saying nothing for extended periods of time could really help anyone.

Joanne explains that it's all about stopping the incessant "noise" in the brain and reaching a higher state of consciousness. Her course covers posture, breathing techniques and mantras, as well as exploring the origins of meditation and the long-term benefits.

"It helps you to put your priorities in place," she says. "It helps you to explore that which is causing you some discomfort, some 'dis-ease' and why that's so. And it helps you to really connect with that which you are trying to accomplish."

She adds: "Meditation is so beneficial for people. It helps to calm the mind, it helps to organise the thoughts in the mind. Nowadays, people are so busy. They have so many things going on, they are juggling so many things in the air.

"In order to manage them, one needs some sense of steadiness to see what's important and to begin to focus on that. The meditation is what helps you to do that."

The 59-year-old, of Devonshire, practises what she preaches and has done so for decades. While in her third year as a New York University student, she began studying yoga and meditation at the Integral Yoga Centre in Greenwich Village.

"I was looking for something to help me focus and centre and get me through so I could graduate," explains Joanne.

"When you get to the last year of university, there's a whole lot of stress in terms of expectations. It was absolutely the best thing I could have done.

"At the time I was smoking three packs of cigarettes every day, totally stressed out. By the time I had finished, I was no longer smoking and I was practising Hatha yoga and meditation regularly."

After college, Joanne moved to an ashram in Connecticut with every intention of becoming a "swami" – or master of yoga.

"I really had taken my vows for a life of celibacy and poverty and all of that," she says. "But I didn't take my final vows. I left the community and felt that I needed to do something else, something different.

"You get a calling to do certain things in your life and you kind of have to go with it. At that time, I felt that I had learnt enough."

Joanne's life took a different path – she married and had two daughters, now aged 23 and 21 – but her dedication to yoga and meditation remained constant.

She became a registered yoga teacher, certified to the highest level, and came back to the Island to open the Integral Yoga Centre on Victoria Street in 1994.

The centre offers classes in various yoga systems, including Hatha, which was developed by Hindu yogis to assist their meditation practice.

These days, Joanne still rises each morning to "settle the mind" with meditation before going to work as a case manager at the Big Brothers, Big Sisters charity.

She is also a trained mediator and works as a consultant offering diversity and organisation development training and conflict resolution.

Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, Joanne meets fellow enthusiasts at 5.45 a.m. for a group meditation session at the Integral Yoga Centre, along with her husband Franz.

"They say that those who prayer together stay together and I believe it," she smiles. "We do meditation until 6.30 a.m. and then from 6.30 a.m. to 7.30 a.m. we do Hatha yoga."

Joanne is a practising Roman Catholic and part of the aim of the course is to teach students that meditation is not aligned to any particular religion or faith; indeed, atheists can benefit as much as anyone else.

"I have always considered myself to be a spiritual person but we are all spiritual people," she says. "I have always been a religious person, so it has benefited me in a particular way but it can benefit anybody in regard to leading a more upright and wholesome life for the good of the world and the good of our community."

Joanne knows some view meditation as "hokey" but she suggests they open their minds. "Sometimes people believe that they are going to be taken out somewhere in terms of their mind where they don't want to go.

"I don't know where people think it's going to take them. Meditation helps us to really discern and discriminate about what's real and what's important for us. What's hokey about that?"

n The meditation course costs $100 and starts on Thursday, March 18 at 7.30 p.m. at the Integral Yoga Centre. To enrol or find out more e-mail jewohlmuth@logic.bm or call 295-3355.