Finding my center: How daily yoga is helping me during the COVID-19 crisis

by: Lauren Cholewa

​As my project for journalism class, I decided to perform yoga at some point every day for many reasons. I live with depression and anxiety due to past events in my life and because it simply runs in my family. Yoga is a very challenging activity depending on the level you participate in. 

According to WebMd [webmd.com] there are various benefits of doing yoga daily, including strength, flexibility and mind-body awareness. It can also help with relaxation and energization. 

 As someone who has struggled with anxiety, I have started doing yoga daily, sometimes even during the times I had been having anxiety. My anxiety usually comes when I start to let my mind wander, over-think things, and start to feel eyes on me.

According to yogajournal.com, yoga is a very beneficial activity for not only your body but also your mind, some of these benefits are better posture, builds muscle, prevents cartilage and joint breakage, drops your blood pressure and makes you happier.

During this process it has been hard to get up and get active during this time in the world because I have nothing else to do other than stay and bed and watch Netflix, which is what most high schoolers dream they could do.

When I would start to feel antsy and start to get the familiar ache in my chest, I get up and go to the middle of my room, or if it were nice outside I bring my yoga mat outside to my back patio and do yoga.

The beginning of doing yoga every day was kind of difficult and hard to figure out what positions I wanted to do and why but as time went on, I figured out my rhythm.

It has extremely affected my emotional and physical health by doing yoga when coming through with anxiety or when my body feels tense and very sore from sleeping the wrong way and tossing and turning in bed. 

To ease my anxiety, I start with sun salutation and control my breathing then bring my body down to warrior 1 and warrior 2 and continue into downward dog and upward dog. The reason I use these positions is because I have learned that these were the constant positions where I could subconsciously control my breathing.

If you suffer from anxiety, depression etc. or just want to move in some way and get active, yoga is definitely an activity that you can do individually or with a group of friends to destress from a test or school. It’s been an amazing way to get blood flowing. 

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