Yoga has so many colors, and you get to mix and match. To some people yoga is all about physical health and preventative health of your joints and bodies. To some people yoga is a cardio exercise that helps tone your muscles and gets you in shape. It can also be a fun activity that strictly helps you release endorphins while looking cool, possibly.
It can also be simply a regular meditative practice that helps you gain mental clarity and helps you be present and in the moment. Yoga is all of these colors and regardless of what color of yoga is your favorite the physical and mental benefits are life changing.
When I graduated college and started an office job, I soon started to notice how that lifestyle change started to affect me negatively. I went from a person who has somewhat a sense of control of my schedule to being constricted to an 8 to 5 schedule with limited opportunities for movement. I went from being able to walk to classes, control the pace of my life to being constricted in a seat for 9 hours, most likely in a bad posture. I would come back home and my energy would be too drained so I would end up sitting in front of a tv, more sitting, great!
The stress of working in an office job also started getting to me. My brain was constantly bombarded with information, deadlines, expectations from my boss and coworkers. I rarely got the opportunity to sit with my thoughts without being interrupted with an email, phone call, and tasks. It didn't help that after being drained so much with the job I just wanted to numb my brain so my choice of breaks was to scroll through instagram or play a phone game or again watch something. So in other words my brain was constantly stimulated and constantly engaged in unhealthy coping patterns and mechanisms. I rarely ever got the chance to think about and analyse my thoughts, I just received the thoughts and without pausing, reacted to them.
I knew something had to change and I needed to choose a healthy hobby to improve my physical and mental health. During my last semester in college I took a yoga class for my PE requirement which I've enjoyed a lot so I decided to find a yoga studio to join.
At the beginning it was hard for me to get myself to go to a yoga class after work but I pushed myself to at least try and do it for a month. It also helped that the studio I happened to join had a variety of classes that allowed me to choose the class based on my energy level that day. They had fun dancey yoga classes, restorative classes and meditation classes. So, I stuck around.
Not long after I got hooked, I started noticing that I'm becoming less reactive to the life around me and that I felt more calm and at peace. I also noticed that even though I spend most of my day sitting in an office that my joints pain has subsided and I also gained more physical stamina. Soon enough going to a yoga class after work became the peak of my day.
I also noticed how much I benefited from the 7 minutes of savasana at the end of classes. It allowed me to pause and observe my thoughts and my patterns. It helped me with gaining a lot of mental clarity regarding how I respond to everyday interactions. It also helped me realize how rare it was for me to be completely unstimulated by anything exterior and to just lay there with my thoughts uninterrupted by anything.
It took me less than 3 years to fall in love with all colors of yoga, and I never looked back. What's your favorite color of yoga?
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