MENTAL HEALTH & PHYSICAL EXERCISE

 

Happy New Year!

I know I haven’t posted in ages and my last post was about Human Nature almost a year ago. But times have been crazy during this and the past year, though in a good sense. Ok, this article is about mental health, about being happy and sane and learning to keep yourself calm and in peace no matter what. Before you start reading this, I have to say that this is all about my own personal experience and it doesn’t mean that everyone works the same way. I can speak only for myself through this and only say how I have personally been helped.

Most people who have known me through the years think I’m popular for walking about 5-6 miles a day in total. As a matter of fact, I’m not into busses and I can’t drive, therefore walking seems the best option for me to reach my destination, especially when it’s rather close to home. My favourite walks, though, have always been to places close to nature and the forest.

During summer 2020, I stayed at my cottage house for almost four months. The place is next to a big forest and therefore I used to take long walks there almost every day. I remember leaving the house at 9 o’clock in the morning and coming back at 9 in the evening. I preferred it being better than rushing off to the gym and sweating for 3 hours…at least at that time.

That’s because I’ve never been into the gym thing at all. I used to be the most inactive person in the world and I couldn’t even stretch my legs for a few seconds long. Of course, this was probably related to self-esteem issues, because I thought I wasn’t ABLE to exercise properly, due to an innate leg issue I’ve got, which of course is a mere justification, because there are even athletes who have this and they still win a championship. In April 2020, I thought I had taken more kilos than ever (weighing almost 56 kilos and having a height of 1.56 m.). A friend of mine said to me she was watching exercise videos on YouTube with a coach called Pamela Reif and that these videos helped her get fit. As we were still in lockdown I had to find some ways to somehow kill my time and also to unleash my feelings after the 7-month lockdown the government had put us in.

I started working out 20 minutes a day at first, usually working on my abs, which had always been the most difficult exercise for me. Very soon I realised that exercise made me want to eat less, though not that healthy, for my part. I used to eat a lot in the morning and my diet consisted also of sweets and chocolates, but in the evenings I would eat something like yoghurt or even nothing.

After Easter, the weighing machine started showing 53 kilos. I probably lost 3 kilos in a month and a half! And the most important thing was that I started searching for a new workout plan because Pamela Reif couldn’t help me anymore. I thought it wasn’t intense enough for me. I was daily working on my abs, legs and doing push-ups (which I’d never ever done before) and I could stretch my body as much as ever.

Before I went off to summer holidays, I found a new workout plan on YouTube, with a coach called Anna and her channel is growingannanas. I jokingly used to call her Banana. She had a weekly workout plan and you could choose between intense programme, low impact and programme with weights. When I started doing this, I had chosen the low impact schedule, which was super intense for me.

In the summer I was weighing 50 kilos. I needed to put a belt around my trousers because the size was too large for me now. I was able to wear my mother’s old tight shirts and even look beautiful on them. Soon enough I started looking more beautiful than ever before. And most important, I started taking care of myself. Never before did I care about myself, about my image, what I was going to wear, my hairstyle, my makeup etc. Now I really love browsing through clothes shops, buying new makeup, looking at new hairstyles…things that in the past I considered to be a foolish Barbie thing. But caring about yourself doesn’t mean that this is the only thing you do in your life.

I feel proud of myself because during the summer holidays I gained only a few grams, which I gradually managed to lose. I kept on exercising with Banana, sometimes along with my cousin, who’s a rhythmic gymnastics athlete. Exercising started to make me feel much more relaxed because this way I felt I could release some energy and somehow escape from everyday problems. We all tend to want to escape from our problems sometimes and I think that physical exercise is much better than playing video games 24/7.

I didn’t want to leave my cottage home at all, because I was close to nature and I enjoyed this. I went back home, keeping on exercising and fifteen days later I returned to my cottage along with my exercise mat. This is when I found out about yoga. As a matter of fact, after exercising I used to stretch out with some yoga exercises, but I hadn’t ever done any yoga course myself. Everybody used to tell me it’s very good for your health, your mind and spirit because it keeps you totally relaxed and unstressed. I always thought this was stupid and if I wanted to relax and unstress I could take a 12-hour walk in the woods. But nobody had told me I could combine both yoga and nature. I was totally against yoga because I don’t agree with all this spiritual ideology that some yoga instructors have. I think that this thing about getting messages from the cosmos and activating your chakras and your third eye is nothing but a stupid delirium. However, I soon realised that not all yoga instructors are like this.

When I returned to my cottage, the weather had started to cool and you could no longer hear those annoying cicadas. It was only the sound of the birds and the thrust of the leaves. Autumn is by far my most favourite season of the year. The colour of nature is so beautiful at that time. It was during that time that I found out about a YouTube channel, called Yoga With Kassandra and since then, I’ve been doing a video every day.

Actually, I haven’t missed a single day without having done yoga (except for the time I was vaccinated and I had a fever for two days). This has been the time of the day when I can really keep to myself and think things clearly. I enjoy doing the Yin Yoga schedule, in which you have to hold yourself to a pose for 3-5 minutes long. You can’t do this unless you’re totally relaxed and you control your breathing. This way your body surrenders to gravity and lets yourself fall. As a matter of fact, I never realised I would ever be doing a full-length butterfly pose or even the splits.

I tend to end my day with an hour of practice of Yin Yoga. This has been very helpful to my mental health, mainly because while being totally relaxed and focusing on my breath, I tend to think through issues I’m concerned about. This is the time when I have a completely clear and open mind and I can even find solutions to my problems.

The other thing about yoga is that I’m more flexible than ever. I can keep my balance for a long time and I don’t have to be afraid of climbing high anymore. Back in the days, I couldn’t climb on a chair, because I was afraid that I might fall down. Now I know that I can stretch my legs and put strength and thus retain my balance.

All in all yoga and workout have both made me be more organised. It has been beneficial to my self-esteem and my persistence. Whenever I have to do a difficult workout exercise I push myself into it and think that I am able to do it. I never give up. And in the end, I feel strong and happy with myself and what I have achieved during the day.

On New Year’s Day, I finished drawing my 2022 Dream Journey Calendar. This is not my own idea; I stole it from a group about Yoga. Every single person had drawn the months of the year in shapes (some did a heart, others a boat, I did a road, which would represent the journey) and they had divided each month into 30 or 31 days, according to how many days each month of the year has. I also finished my own and I draw each day with a different colour, which represents the days that I did my workout. For the time being, I’ve drawn the two first days of January. And then at the end of the year, I’ll take a look at the calendar and check out how many days were drawn.

Keeping fit, healthy, balanced and happy has been my promise for 2022. I hope everyone in the world keeps their own promises and find their own inner peace. And of course, I recommend yoga and physical exercise to everyone. Very soon you’ll notice the results in your body and soul.

Have a nice journey!