my one mental health secret
the wonders of a consistent practice [90]:
I have been doing yoga since 2019. The decision to start came out of a stressful college semester when I overloaded myself with classes, work, and extracurriculars. I am neurotic so I knew I had to find an outlet to calm my nerves with the chaotic schedule.
Like many people who started doing yoga, I went on YouTube and searched for “yoga”. A bunch of videos came up but the most popular channel at the time was Yoga with Adriene. Adriene already had hundreds of videos on YouTube then, so I picked a beginner-friendly looking one and followed her instructions.
Over the next six years, yoga has been a practice that stuck with me through thick and thin. When life gets stressful, it is there to prop me up and help me move through stressors more gracefully. Yoga is meditative, good for your health, and inexpensive. All you need is a mat or soft surface and online access to follow tutorials.
A few essays back, I wrote about finding an anchor in life for when things get rocky. Yoga is one of my anchors because I can always return to it and expect the practice to be constant and healing equally whether my life is smooth sailing or not. I can leave my mat untouched for weeks and take it out to practice anytime. The feeling of moving my body swiftly on the mat can be retrieved every time.
Here are a few benefits I noticed from practicing yoga over the years:
Acts as a method of movement meditation (I have low attention span and am naturally restless. Still meditation sometimes makes my mind race; movements calm my brain down. This is beneficial for people with ADHD or ADHD tendencies, I either walk or do yoga for this benefit)
Increases your flexibility
Helps increase your strength. As you practice yoga over time, you gain strength through more advanced body-weight poses. You are carrying your body weight and that is the portion of strength training.
Improves morning stiffness and grogginess. Easy movements first thing in the morning slowly wakes your body and mind.
Helps prepare for sleep. Yoga is a great alternative to screen time to get yourself ready for bed. I use yoga as a transitional act before I read and wind down for bed.
I rarely stepped off the mat feeling worse off than when I stepped on. The beauty is that you can make the practice serve you and fit your lifestyle and budget.
I want to share this post because it feels like a secret to improved mental and physical health, something that is simple yet not discussed enough. Wellness doesn’t have to be expensive or a stressor to your financial health. Fitness is a practice and not a commodity that can be sold and bought easily without you putting in enough work over time. I have been going through big life changes myself and I am reminded of how magical this practice has been and continues to be.
There are a few things I love doing in life: running/walking, reading/writing, baking, and doing yoga. I rotate between them throughout each season but I am always doing a couple of these activities at once. All of them share the same sentiment: repetitive, simple, predictable. It is a widely accepted fact that for a sport like running - time on feet, even without special training like hill sprints or tempo runs, just going out there and putting one foot in front of the other helps build endurance and performance over time.
The same thing applies to yoga. Yoga is one of those activities that are perfect for impatient people. It is mostly a self-contained act and non-competitive. It is you and the mat only. You see yourself through how you show up to practice.
It is tempting to always prioritize externally rewarding endeavors. External validation is what many, including myself, choose to pursue in the modern world, whether for monetary or social prestige. A certificate, a paid gig, or a medal sounds attractive but how about doing something for the sake of just liking it? My life is a constant gnaw between the two below states: progress takes time and we don’t have time. Completing seemingly repetitive activities nudges me that not everything I do needs to be immediately gratifying and practicing a skill on a smaller scale is okay.
If your life demands volatile and competitive energies, some of the aforementioned activities are the ultimate antidote. If you are easily overwhelmed, resistant to change, or tend to crave a level of predictability in life - try yoga and let me know what you think.
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Somehow it hadn't occurred to me to do yoga in my home; I'd always gone to a studio and paid for the privilege. What a nice, low-bar (in terms of no shame in front of the class, low cost, and low effort!) way to get into it, especially since some of the online "classes" are short and sweet and a lot easier to fit into a busy day than:
- going somewhere,
- waiting for class to start,
- feeling like you must stay the entire hour because everyone is watching and there are expectations
- waiting for the group to file out,
- and commuting back.
Thank you for this recommendation!
Years ago I took a Yoga class (Beginner) with a very demanding instructor and I had to quit as I wonder how he became an instructor. Later, I bought several books and started yoga at home but like Yuezhong, I prefer doing Yoga with another person or a group. Yoga is great! I saw a great documentary on meditation explaining that meditation is not recommended for everybody as it can increase anxiety especially if you have suffer trauma or have mental health issues you need specialized meditation. I think that most people are not aware of that.