My Tryst With Yoga

The mental scars left behind by the COVID-19 pandemic have not fully gone; yet another year has passed by. With the start of 2025, there is hope for a healthier tomorrow. But we must not forget the lessons learned in the past. One of my main lessons is to strengthen my immunity and disease resistance. In this matter, I made many lifestyle and diet changes; one was yoga.

My tryst with yoga began many years ago. As a teenager, my mother sent me to yoga classes during summer holidays to improve my health and endurance. My instructor was a young Ayurveda doctor who lived in our neighbourhood. It was easy to visit his clinic daily at 7:30 in the morning and learn for an hour at the start of my day.

The plan was simple, but the execution was flawed. My instructor was not an experienced teacher, so he did not teach me the correct method of doing yoga. As a result, I developed aches and pains; I was not able to do any exercise completely. Soon, I discontinued yoga and developed an aversion to it.

A few years later, upon the insistence of an elderly relative, I decided to give yoga another shot. This time, I went to an experienced senior and explained my experience in detail. She recognized my earlier mistakes and promised to help me learn correctly. I told her that my goal was to increase my weight healthily, and from there, I began my journey to discover yoga.

True to her word, my instructor was experienced and taught me the proper technique. One of my mistakes was my incorrect breathing pattern. Breathing correctly and managing your breathing pattern to reduce the strain during exercises is essential. Irregular breathing, holding our breath, or following the wrong pattern can lead to strain in all the wrong places.

It is also essential to maintain a gap between eating and yoga. Apparently, one should not do yoga with a full stomach. Another thing that I learned was to do warmup exercises before you start yoga. I was unaware that even yoga requires warmups.

With this learning, I regularly practised yoga. Although my weight did not increase, my sleep quality, general activeness, and appetite improved. However, I discontinued after I started working, as my shift timings and class timing did not match.

My laziness also contributed to this break. Despite all these hurdles, I still remembered the teachings of my instructor and tried to practice intermittently.

Coming to the issue of healthy living, I want to restart my yoga practice. A healthy mind and body should be enough motivation, but I decided to put on my blog for extra measure so my readers can hold me accountable. This will encourage me to persevere and practise regularly to overcome my laziness.

I hope my attempt at good health works in this new year. Happy New Year to everyone!!