Economic Recession Leads To Overcrowding At Gyms & Yoga Studios?

Eric Banana is almost fully convinced that a positive/negative side-effect of the current economic recession is that people are going to the gyms and yoga studios (sidenote: the acronym GAYS is a pure coincidence :P) more often. There are two aspects of this: (1) Those people who have been retrenched have a lot of free time on top of their job hunting and therefore spend more time exercising; (2) Those people who survived the retrenchment have more work to do now and are more stressed, so they need to release their tension via exercise. Of course, the assumption for both groups of people is that they have already signed up for a prepaid package at a gym or yoga studio, that is, they have to pay the fees through monthly installments until their packages expire. Another assumption is that given the economic crisis, it's unlikely that many new customers will sign up for packages at gyms and yoga studios.

So why is the side-effect positive/negative? Well, more people are devoting more time to exercising and working their way to a healthier lifestyle. That's the positive aspect. The only negative to all these is that gyms and yoga studios are getting way overcrowded. A gym or yoga studio can probably sign on "x" members comfortably on the assumption that their utilisation patterns are different. Of course, there are gyms and yoga studios which sign on more members than their theoretical "x". Well, they are in a bit of trouble recently, aren't they? However, the theoretical "x" becomes a problem once utilisation patterns change. Individual changes are unlikely to upset the status quo. However, a sweeping phenomenon such as an economic crisis that affects the majority of the population is a totally different thing altogether.

As a result, Eric Banana has been facing difficulties trying to book the yoga classes he wanted over the past few weeks. The available yoga classes are either the unpopular ones or at unearthly time-slots like 9 p.m. or something. Like today, Eric Banana had to drag his donkey to the yoga studio at 9 a.m. on a Sunday morning. Every single lesson at the yoga studio was fully booked this morning except the 9 a.m. class.

At this rate, Eric Banana is quite sure he would have to gatecrash Kids Yoga or Prenatal classes one day :|