Yoga - Swim Sky Breathe

January 2, 2022January 3, 2022

2022 Intentions

I know a lot of people don’t like the idea of New Year’s resolutions as they think of them as a way of setting yourself up to fail.

Colin always has small handful of resolutions. I’m a lover of a list on the other hand, and come January 1st can find myself with up to 25 resolutions, or intentions, covering every aspect of my life. I always see them as something I’d like to try to do though, and if I get to the end of the year and realise that I didn’t achieve them, which is usually the case with about 50% of my intentions, I’ll either shrug my shoulders and forget about them or add them to my list for the following year.. I see them as suggestions – a could-do list – rather than something that I need to beat myself up about if I get to December 31 and haven’t done.

For example, every year since I can remember I’ve written down an intention to listen to new music and discover new artists in the year to come, and I never ever manage. I’ll download a playlist on Spotify of new sounds for that particular year and then forget to listen to it. The only new artist I discovered in 2021 was Olivia Rodrigo, courtesy of our kids!

I also promised myself I’d do Duolingo every day this year as I’ve been brushing up on my stale Russian and trying to learn Swedish. I did it quite often, but every day just didn’t happen. And I had a huge, ambitious list of podcasts I was going to listen to by the end of 2021, that didn’t happen either.

With that in mind, here are my intentions for 2022 –

Swim 25 lengths at our local lido, Jesus Green Lido. And it’s 90m long, so those are quite big lengths. I’ve done lots of outdoor swimming in the past twelve months, in wonderful locations, but I need to work on distance. I’ve set myself this as a goal, and am also thinking of signing up to a swimming challenge later on in the year. Being in the very fortunate position of having an outdoor swimming coach as a husband, I’m hopeful I’ll ace this one.

Run 5k without stopping. Confession – I don’t really like running. I got quite good at it years ago, but it was never something I enjoyed doing in the way other people seem to. I enjoyed the sense of achievement afterwards though, and loved doing it with Colin who was always great at encouraging me to keep going and not stop. This morning Colin went out for a run and I wished I’d joined him – he’s always saying that if I persevere I’ll end up enjoying it, and I would like to be able to run 5k as I was once able to do without having to stop and walk. Will be starting this week!

Continue to try and find ways to cut down on our plastic use and live more sustainably. I think we do OK on this as a family, but there are always ways to cut down further. Here are some of the changes we’ve made so far – and in 2021, we improved on that again by cutting down on car use and cycling more (moving to Cambridge helped a lot!), switching to a veg box delivery, getting smarter about waste and making consumer choices that favoured sustainable companies. In 2022 we want to build on that. We’ll be looking out for local events to get involved in, and continuing to share plant based recipes and stories of sustainable living with our growing audience.

Take our camper van to Europe! We’re trying not to get too excited about this one as we’ve been here before (in January 2021!) Back in the pre-pandemic era, when we bought our camper van, we planned an amazing two week European holiday with the van for summer 2020. Of course, we ended up cancelling it, and then didn’t take it in 2021 as a multi-country visit juggling the entry requirements of various countries didn’t seem feasible. This year, we really hope that it will finally happen and that we’ll be able to take our tour of some of Europe’s best hiking and swimming spots this summer. Watch this space!

Creating and maintaining good boundaries – when I look back at moments of stress and unhappiness in 2021, many of them were down to not having good boundaries in place, and I’m going to make sure that these are better, and stronger in 2022. One of the things that has helped me in 2021 is a regular digital detox – switching my phone off for a couple of days or longer over holidays, ensuring that the important people in my life know how to get hold of me if they need me. A firm boundary between real life and the online world is a really important one to maintain and one I’ll be working on this year.

The most important thing for me with all of my 2022 intentions, though, is to see them as just that. They’re not written on tablets of stone, they’re simply suggestions – so I won’t beat myself up if they don’t happen. I’ll update on our progress via this blog and Instagram – looking forward to getting started 🙂

December 18, 2021December 18, 2021

Self-Care at Christmas

It’s the most wonderful time of the year, but can also be the most stressful, lonely and difficult one. A recent thread on Mumsnet about people’s worst Christmases revealed tale after tale of Christmases that were memorable for all the wrong reasons, with stories of drunken relatives, toxic families and abusive spouses.

And even without the difficulties of family time at Christmas, there is so much pressure on us to make Christmas perfect, from the Instagram posts of perfectly curated colour co-ordinated trees and piles of presents, to the relentless messages from all quarters to spend, spend, spend on things we don’t need or can’t afford, whether it’s on useless gifts that end up going in a cupboard and then to the charity shop or the latest toy or piece of jewellery that leaves you overdrawn well into spring.

Each year brings a new gimmick that we’re encouraged to spend on, from Elf on the Shelf, to Christmas Eve boxes and beauty advent calendars. And that’s not to the mention the ‘must-do’ Christmas experiences, whether it’s the local Christmas light show at £15 per head, Santa’s grotto, or the Christmas markets that can end up setting you back a fortune. It can be unaffordable for the average family.

And then there are those of us who find Christmas sad and painful. Perhaps it was once a happy time, but you’ve lost someone special in your life and Christmas is a reminder of how things used to be. Or you’re not in the place you’d want to be in life – perhaps you wish for a partner, or children, to share Christmas with, but find yourself without. Sometimes it can feel as though everyone is enjoying Christmas except you.

Any and all of these things can lead to stress, depression and burnout at Christmas. Here’s our guide to looking after yourself at Christmas so January doesn’t begin with you feeling exhausted, miserable and overwhelmed.

Take some time on your own in nature. Even if this means braving the elements and taking a ten-minute walk around the local park or green space, it will benefit your mood and help to make you feel happier and less stressed. A 2020 study from Cornell University showed that just ten minutes spent in a natural setting can improve mood and reduce stress levels. It doesn’t matter whether you’re walking or just sitting – getting outside will help to make you feel better. While you’re out, take time to notice what’s around you. The sound of the birds, or the feeling of the wind, or the noise of the rain gently falling on the pavement. Slow everything down and just breathe.

And if you have a little longer, and can do so safely, we cannot recommend the tonic of a swim in cold water enough for resetting your mood – you’ll come out of the water feeling totally refreshed, with whatever was worrying you hopefully feeling a little less big and overwhelming than it did before you went in the water. Just make sure you follow the rules for safe swimming – go with someone else or tell someone where you’re going, make sure you’re familiar with the body of water you’re swimming in, don’t get too cold and get out if you start feeling warm or tired. Read more tips on safe outdoor swimming here.

Remember that the best things in life really are free. Recently, we decided to go to London to visit the Christmas markets. This was a nice idea on paper, but ended up being stressful with the crowds, noise and queues. On the way back home, I told our 11 year old that I was sorry the day hadn’t been as Christmassy as we’d hoped. She replied that to her the most Christmassy thing she could think of was all of us sitting in our living room watching Christmas movies together. You don’t have to spend money to make Christmas.

Try a mindfulness meditation. Carve out five or ten minutes for yourself to spend time meditating, and remember that self-care doesn’t mean self-indulgence. A meditation in the morning can set the tone for the day, and help you recognise and manage any feelings that have come up over Christmas time. I have posted before about how invaluable I find mindfulness meditation and how helpful in managing any negative emotions I might be feeling. Try these Calm Moment meditations which have been especially tailored for Christmas.

Just say no. Remember that you don’t have to say yes to every Christmas opportunity that comes your way. This year, there are far fewer socialising opportunities, so December is far less of a whirlwind. Remember though, it’s fine to pass up invitations if it’s all feeling too much. You don’t have to go to the midnight mass carol service on Christmas Eve, or your neighbour’s drinks party, or the informal office Christmas lunch. No one is judging and no one is keeping score – Christmas isn’t about how many people you see and how many events you attend.

Connect with people over Christmas. Check in on your loved ones, especially this year. It may not be possible to do this in person, but if you know someone close to you who might be having a hard time over Christmas, resolve to check in on them regularly. It will make you, and them, feel good.

Practise gratitude. Think about the things that you are grateful for this Christmas. This could be your health, a warm home, friends and family, good food to eat, the sight of frost on the lawn and the blue December sky. It’s a good way to remind yourself that there is always something to be grateful for in life, even if it seems small. Christmas is a perfect time to reflect on the good things in life, as once you start you usually find that there is more than you might imagine.

Plan beyond Christmas. If this time of year is really difficult for you, try to plan something nice for January and beyond. Maybe book a holiday, lunch with friends, arrange a walk in the countryside or invite someone over for a meal. It will give you a focus beyond Christmas and something to look forward to.

Remember that it’s just one day. Be kind to yourself. Everyone else in the world apart from you isn’t having an amazing time. What you see on Instagram, however lovely it is – the piles of presents, children in matching Christmas pyjamas, stockings by a roaring fire – is rarely the full picture. For most people, Christmas time, like life, is a mixture of happy moments and flashes of stress and sadness.

If you’re finding Christmas really difficult, help is out there. Here are some services that can help .

October 6, 2021October 22, 2021

Autumn Self-Care and Mindful Practices

There are so many things we both love about autumn. There’s that first moment of autumn – usually around the beginning of September – when you step outside, take a breath, and inhale something crisp, clear and cold – and know that summer is over and autumn is here. Autumn always seem to arrive so suddenly, rather than the gradual transition that happens between other seasons. You start to notice the leaves slowly turning red, and gold, and see them drifting down from the trees and onto the pavement and beneath your feet. And you watch the birds as they make their way south – a feat that never seems less incredible, no matter how many autumns pass.

It also feels like a time of new beginnings – new term at school and university, the reminder of stiff new school uniforms, pencil cases full of sharp pencils, new things to learn and new people to know.

I love these words from Ali Smith about autumn –

“November again. It’s more winter than autumn. That’s not mist. It’s fog. The sycamore seeds hit the glass in the wind like – no, not like anything else, like sycamore seeds hitting window glass. There’ve been a couple of windy nights. The leaves are stuck to the ground with the wet. The ones on the paving are yellow and rotting, wanwood, leafmeal. One is so stuck that when it eventually peels away, its leafshape left behind, shadow of a leaf, will last on the pavement till next spring. The furniture in the garden is rusting. They’ve forgotten to put it away for the winter. The trees are revealing their structures. There’s the catch of fire in the air. All the souls are out marauding. But there are roses, there are still roses. In the damp and the cold, on a bush that looks done, there’s a wide-open rose, still. Look at the colour of it.”

Autumn, like every season, is a time for self-care. We’ve put together some ideas for connecting with yourself and the world around you over the next few months.

Don’t hibernate – embrace the outdoors. It’s so tempting when autumn starts to wrap yourself up in warm clothes and hibernate in your home until spring, avoiding the cold and darkness. But next time you look out of the window and think it’s too cold, rainy or dark to go out, try going against your instincts, throwing on some waterproofs, and stepping out into the autumn weather. Letting the wind and rain and cold flow over you rather than cringing away from it is something I learned to do when I took up winter swimming, Enjoy the feeling of being alive, in your body, in autumn. As the rain lashes your face and the wind whips at your hair, take time to be in the moment and focus on the here and now, pushing away any doubts and worries that might be troubling you and just letting nature wash over you.

Take up a craft like knitting or crochet. I was lucky enough to be taught to knit by my wonderful Granny, who was a complete knitting guru and always on hand to fix my mistakes. But if you don’t have someone to teach you, there are zillions of YouTube videos that will show you how, from the most basic stitches and beyond. Knitting has seen me through more than one life crisis – I started off with scarves and progressed to toys and random items (our home is filled with knitted crabs, bananas and strawberries!). Taking time to make things is such a mindful way to spend time, as your attention is focused on your creation. Your mind slows right down as you lose yourself to the rhythm of each stitch – it’s truly meditative. And if you want to know how to knit a prawn, you know where to find me 🙂

Forage for food. Early autumn is the perfect time to forage as there’s such an abundance of berries, herbs, nuts and fungi. Take a bag with you, and some secateurs or kitchen scissors, and visit your nearest green area to see what you can find – even urban parks often have hidden treasures, so you don’t need to go all the way out into the countryside – you might even be surprised at what you find in your own garden! An app like Seek is a great way of identifying what’s edible and what isn’t – take extra care with berries and mushrooms and the wrong type will make you feel pretty unwell. The Woodland Trust has a guide to what to forage month by month – just remember to only take what you need as you don’t want to upset the balance of the ecosystem your’e foraging in.

Bake something. Now that you’ve foraged all of that wonderful food, think about making a cake or some bread with your free, fresh ingredients. Try making our vegan breakfast bake with apples or Running on Real Food’s vegan blackberry crumble – or for something totally different, make some vitamin-packed nettle bread.

Embrace the change of autumn by making some resolutions. Yes, January is usually the time to make resolutions – but as F.Scott Fitzgerald once said, life starts all over again once it gets crisp in the fall. Maybe now is the time to try to give up a bad habit that you’ve never managed to lose in January, start a new sport (winter swimming is a brilliant one!) or promising yourself you’ll set aside a few minutes every day for self-care, such as yoga or a mindfulness meditation. Always set intentions with an open mindset – it’s ok not to achieve them, and there are no rules apart from the ones that you make for yourself about how long you give yourself to get there, or how many times you allow yourself to try.

Try this outdoor mindfulness exercise. Go and sit somewhere really quiet, maybe a bench in your local park, or in your garden if you have one. Just sit in silence for a moment and connect with your breathing, bringing awareness to your feet on the ground, finding a comfortable posture. Close your eyes and focus first on what you can hear – the sound of the wind, water running nearby, dogs barking, leaves crackling underfoot. You’ll notice that some of these sounds are constant, while others fade away. Then move on to what you can smell – perhaps the scent of a bonfire, the earthy smell of the leaves, the fir trees beside you. Open your eyes slowly and focus on what you can see – the beautiful colours of autumn, the leaves on the ground, the wind rustling the leaves left on the trees. And finally, choose something to pick up and hold – a nut fallen from a tree, or maybe a particularly crisp leaf on the ground. Notice the shape and colour object, running your hands over it and noticing the texture – is it wet, or dry? Hot or cold? Smooth or bumpy? If your mind wanders, gently bring it back to the moment and enjoy this time you’ve given yourself to be fully immersed in the moment of where you are now.

If you liked this post, read our post about a good night’s sleep.

January 7, 2021January 7, 2021

A good night’s sleep

It’s early January 2021, and here in the UK new restrictions are in place. For many of us this means being plunged back into a world of home schooling, juggling work, or worse, not having any work at all and all of the worries that that includes.

A good night’s sleep doesn’t solve any of these things, but good sleep is really important for our mental and physical wellbeing. So I’ve put together this guide to a good sleep, incorporating many of the things that I find useful in my sleep routine, that I hope are helpful to you. And for those of us who have sleepless babies or toddlers or even older children, or other responsibilities or health conditions that make a full night’s sleep impossible, I hope you can use at least some of these suggestions to make the sleep you do get better and more restful and restorative.

Limit naps during the day. I am the world’s biggest fan of naps, but they can be really detrimental to a good night’s sleep if you’re taking long ones in the afternoon. And I often find that a two hour nap can make me feel groggy, irritable and the opposite of rested. If you need a nap in the afternoon, set an alarm for between half an hour and 60 minutes. It’s often all that you need to feel refreshed, and it won’t affect your being able to sleep at bedtime.

Spend more time outside in the daylight. That’s not always easy in the winter, but where you can, try to take a walk outside every day, perhaps at lunchtime. If you walk your dog, do that during the day as well as at night. The exercise benefits will help you to fall asleep at night, too – even light exercise, like a short lunchtime walk, will have benefits for your sleep.

No screen rule. I put this in place last year after waking up at 2am one morning and automatically opening my phone and checking my emails, finding something that made me feel stressed, and realising that no one should be on their phone at that time in the morning when they should be sleeping. By bringing your phone into your bedroom, you are inviting the whole world into your bed with you. Since then I’ve stuck to it, leaving my phone in the hall or living room, and am amazed by how effective it’s been in meaning that I wake up less in the night. My one exception to the no screen rule is my Kindle, which I open up when I find myself unable to get back to sleep.

A good bedtime yoga routine is a great precursor to a restful night’s sleep. You don’t need to pull out your yoga mat – just some gentle stretching by the side of your bed works. I love this one with the wonderful Yoga with Adriene, but I also have my own shorter five minute version that I know off by heart too. It’s a good idea to create your own yoga routines, not just for sleep but for waking too, so that you’re not always dependent on a screen to practice.

Podcasts can be a great way to help you drop off to sleep at night. You might have to break your no screen rule to listen to one, so try to place your phone somewhere in the bedroom where you can’t easily reach for it if you wake up in the night. I really like Nothing Much Happens, a story podcast. I don’t think I’ve ever stayed awake until the end of the story. The Deep Energy podcast plays sounds from nature if you prefer that to the sound of another voice. Or, you could try a mindfulness meditation – there are some great ones on Headspace.

A sleep mask is a great investment as a way of blocking out the light, as well as dust particles and other irritants, and can help you fall asleep faster. The darker your bedroom, the better your sleep is likely to be, as our brains are hard-wired to need darkness for sleep. I’m a big fan of this Billy Sleeps sleep mask made from fabric cut-offs. Scenting your mask with a little lavender oil on the outside can help you drop off, too (check with your doctor about using this if you are pregnant).

A good strategy for chasing night time worries away is key to a good night’s sleep. Mindfulness techniques can come in really useful here, when it’s 2am and you’re wide awake and worrying about your MOT bill, what your colleague meant at that meeting yesterday, and whether that pain in your back is something more serious. Remember that you don’t have to engage with unhelpful thoughts. You don’t have to find solutions to all of these problems lying in your bed in the wee small hours. Imagine yourself sitting by the side of a waterfall, where the waterfall represents your thoughts as they pass through your mind. Acknowledge them as they rush by. It can often help to name them – here is anxiety, here is anger, here is sadness – and let the torrent pass as you watch your thoughts tumble through the waterfall from your comfortable place at the side.

And finally, make sure that your bedroom is the right temperature. The Sleep Council recommend a temperature of 16-18 C in your bedroom, as if you’re too hot or cold you won’t sleep well.

December 30, 2020December 30, 2020

Lessons from 2020

I’m not even going to try to write something deep and meaningful about what 2020 has meant to us. I wouldn’t know where to start. I look back at my January 2020 self – I’m sure we all do this with our fresh faced, innocent, January 2020 selves – and think about how she had no idea what was about to hit her.

It’s been a year like no other for all of us, full of loss, change, new ways of doing things, and for some of us, hopefully, growth and learning. Here are some of our lessons from 2020, some of which we know we wouldn’t have learned had this year turned out differently.

Starting with a less serious one – never cook bacon, vegan or otherwise, in your camper van. Just don’t do it. The smell will live on FOREVER. This is one of a few camping tips I’ve picked up in 2020- more here!

What all the fuss about mindfulness is about. I’d tried to do mindfulness before, and failed as I just didn’t really know where to start. A guided five week course through work proved to be life changing, and with daily guided exercises and homework it really did transform the way I approach life, stress and unhelpful thoughts. I love the idea, for example, that it’s OK for a worry (and god knows we’ve all had enough of those in 2020!) to enter your head – and for you to acknowledge it – but to then let it drift through your head and out the other side – like watching a car drive past, and choosing not to get in it. Here are some starter mindfulness exercises if it’s something you’d like to try in 2021.

How to make sourdough bread, and other types of bread too. Such a cliche…. but prompted by the yeast shortage of early 2020, I decided to make a sourdough starter, which has led to a 2020 filled with fresh bread and far too much eating of poppy seed rolls slathered with Naturli vegan butter.

Recipe: fennel and olive homemade bread rolls

That losing something can be a gateway to something exciting and new. Like lots of people this year, Colin was made redundant from his main job at a small Edinburgh charity. We had a tough few weeks when we knew this was in the offing, with meetings and negotiations for Colin, and then the reality of knowing that from October, he’d no longer have a steady income. His dream – and part of our bigger dream – has been to teach people to swim and spend every day in the sea, but giving up his job to focus solely on that seemed a huge step. With the decision made for him, he put everything into growing Scottish Swimmer, his coaching business – and hasn’t looked back. To date, he’s swum 120k in the sea this year teaching some 200 people from beginners to elite swimmers, and has even bigger plans for 2021.

How much of a lifeline books can be. I’ve always been a very avid reader – I love the way books transport you to another world, especially when you need it most. And with no option to actually go very far in 2020, books took on an even bigger role in my life. Here are some of my favourites from 2020 –

Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart – Bleak, brilliant and heartbreaking. Might be my book of 2020.

Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell – So evocative, richly detailed and almost unbearably sad – the story of Shakespeare’s son Hamnet who died as a child.

Everything I Know About Love by Dolly Alderton – Honest, painful, funny and warm, like talking to an old friend.

A Boy and His Dog at the End of the World – C.A Fletcher – set in a post apocalyptic world, the book traces a young boy’s journey from the Outer Hebrides to southern England to find his stolen dog. Hopeful and engrossing with an unexpected twist.

Under Milk Wood – Dylan Thomas – one of those books that I have always meant to read but never got round to. I’m only sorry I left it so late. The scene between Captain Cat and Rosie Probert is beautifully heart-rending.

Finally, 2020 has taught me to take one day at a time as, now more than ever, we have no idea what tomorrow might bring. I’ve never been great at this, and often find myself looking forward to the next thing – a holiday, a work trip away, the weekend – and forgetting about the here and now. All we actually have is today, and this moment – yesterday is gone, and tomorrow isn’t real yet. So I’m learning to be better at existing just in the moment, and this has been a good strategy for me in 2020. As I write this, I have no idea what the next few weeks or months might hold – potentially school closures, further restrictions, certainly more time at home. The only thing I do know is that today my family and I are safe and well, and that nothing else really matters beyond that.

Happy 2021, everyone – here’s to a year that hopefully brings us peace, health and happiness.

November 19, 2020December 2, 2020

Five of my favourite easy mindful exercises

I’ve always been interested in mindfulness, but until I began studying it formally and reading about it in more detail, I often found myself not knowing ‘how’ to practice it when I had some time to myself. Here are five of my favourite mindfulness exercises, that are particularly good if you are new to mindfulness.

The body scan. This is a great exercise for beginners who are new to mindfulness.

Start by sitting in a comfortable position, and bring awareness to your breath, focusing on where your body meets the ground and where you’re sitting. Then starting at your head, shine a ‘spotlight’ of attention on each area of your body noticing the sensations in it. Move all the way down your body to your feet, focusing on each area of your body and noticing how it feels, gently guiding your mind back to the breath when your attention wanders.

It can be a good idea to do a guided body scan initially – I like this one.

Bringing mindfulness to your daily routine. For days when you’re too busy to sit down and go through a mindfulness meditation, bringing mindfulness to something you do every day is a great way of tuning in to your senses and being present in the moment. This could be cleaning your teeth, making your bed, maybe eating your breakfast. So you might want to pay attention to the way the toothpaste tube feels, the smell of the toothpaste as you squeeze it on to your toothbrush, the feel of the bristles in your mouth. The important thing is that you observe the steps of something you do automatically in a more mindful way.

A 4321 mindfulness exercise outdoors. This can be anywhere – out in the wild, or in your back garden. Find a comfortable place to sit, either on the ground or on a seat. Close your eyes, and connect with your breath.

Then notice four things that you see, taking time to observe them one at a time. From there, move on to three things that you can hear, focusing intently on the sound. Follow on from that by observing two things that you can feel – perhaps the breeze on your face, or the feel of the grass underneath your feet. Finally, notice one thing that you can smell or touch – maybe the flowers in your garden, the scent of the sea, or the bark of a tree you’re sitting near. Take time to observe all of these things fully is a great way to ground yourself, especially if you are feeling worried or anxious, and to stop negative thoughts spinning out of control.

Setting an intention for the day. Choose a positive intention that you are going to keep in your mind and work towards during the day.

Maybe you’ll decide that you’re going to spend today feeling gratitude for the things you’d ordinarily take for granted – a warm house, family who love you, food in your fridge, strong legs to get you out of bed in the morning, if these are things you are lucky enough to have in your life.

Maybe you’ll focus on self care with your intention, promising yourself you’ll eat well and that everything you put in your body will be nourishing, clean food.

You can write the intention down, or just hold it in your mind throughout the day. Make time to check in with yourself during the day and revisit your intention, calling it to the centre of your mind.

Mindful eating. How often do we shovel down our food, hardly tasting it and missing out on all of the enjoyment a good meal brings, loading up the next forkful as soon as we’ve put the food in our mouths?

Try slowing down when you’re eating instead. Take time to sit down with your plate in front of you and appreciate what you’re about to eat. Notice the different colours and textures of your food, the smell, and finally, the taste. Focus on chewing every mouthful and finishing it before getting your fork or spoon ready with the next one. Notice the texture and flavour as you breathe slowly and enjoy the meal in front of you.

June 16, 2020December 2, 2020

Eight things I’ve learned about yoga

I started practising yoga around four years ago.

At first, it was purely a form of physical exercise for me. I absolutely hate gyms and machines and the pounding, sweaty vibe you find there, which I’m not dissing at all – it just isn’t me. I wanted something that would make me strong and toned and flexible, but that could also be slow and gentle and thoughtful.

Since then, yoga has evolved into a much more holistic practice for me, and has become more than a form of exercise. Here I thought I’d share eight things about yoga I’ve learned along the way.

It’s more or less free, though a good yoga mat helps. Yoga is a very inclusive activity. And although you can splurge a fortune on Lululemon leggings – which are admittedly fab – and expensive clothing, it can just as easily be done in a pair of leggings and t shirt. My main tips for clothing are to have clothes that fit, which means leggings that don’t slide down and need yanked up every minute during your practice, a top that isn’t too tight or so loose that your head disappears inside it when you go into down dog, and a decent mat. I started off with a very cheap £9.99 mat and it just got slippy and uncomfortable after a few months. A slightly more expensive one – which was £30 – was made of better quality material and doesn’t have me sliding all over the place, as well as having lasted two years and counting.
You can see results so quickly if you practice. I don’t just mean results in terms of the appearance of your body and increased strength, but in how quickly you can go from being absolutely hopeless at a pose to nailing it. When I started out, bakasana pose, or crow, was something that I watched other people in my class do, open mouthed. I couldn’t even fathom how anyone could lift themselves off the floor even for a second like that without face planting. But I was determined to try. A month, daily practice, and several face plants later, I managed to lift myself a couple of centimetres off the ground for maybe one second. And that was it! I kept practising, and now I can bakasana with confidence for a good thirty seconds. Headstand was the same – the sheer exhilaration I felt after two years of practise and finally kicking off into a perfect straight headstand was unbeatable.
The physical poses are only one part of yoga. Yoga, meaning ‘yoking’ or ‘union’ in Sanskrit, has eight limbs, that represent its central practices from the outer world to the inner. Asana – the postures practised in yoga – represent the third limb – and yoga is as much about spirtuality as it is about the physical practice. It’s fine if you want to focus just on that part of yoga – there’s no right or wrong approach. But it’s respectful to be aware of the bigger picture in yoga, and it will enrich your practice if you commit to learning more about the other limbs of it.
You never regret taking time out to do yoga. Sometimes you’re tired, or grumpy, and you just want to stay in bed and scroll through Instagram. But yoga, like outdoor swimming for me, is rarely something you come out of feeling worse (see point 5 for the exception here!). If you set aside time for yourself to practice yoga – even ten minutes if there’s too much going on – your body and mind will always feel better for it. So when you can’t be bothered, or you’re feeling low, remember to tell yourself that. Your future self will thank you for taking the time out to do a little yoga.
But, following on from 5, don’t set yourself up for disappointment by doing it when there’s too much else going on. There are exceptions to four. If your kids are being noisy, or you’re stressed because the guy downstairs has been blasting out his music since 6am, or next door are having a kitchen put in and the banging is driving you mad, there’s a good chance that’s going to come in to your yoga practice unless you’ve truly mastered the art of focusing solely on the moment and what’s going on with you, your mind and your body. And if you can’t focus, or you’re being interrupted by your five year old every two minutes, it’s likely you’re just going to end up more stressed than before. Set aside time for yoga – but only if you know you’re able to do it without noise and interruption.
We should respect yoga’s roots and its cultural heritage. This might be the most important point of all. Cultural appropriation is something that’s been talked about a lot in the yoga community in recent years, and rightly so. It’s important to acknowledge that there’s far more to yoga than Instagram headstands and expensive designer leggings. Yoga is estimated to be at least 2500 years old, having originated in India, and has deep spiritual and cultural roots. Many of the items that you see in yoga studios as decoration have important religious and cultural significance – so it’s inappropriate to wear a pair of leggings with Ganesh on them, or for your yoga studio to use items with spiritual significance as a decoration in the bathroom. Yoga has a rich history which it’s important to honour.
You can do yoga anywhere – well, mostly anywhere! I’ve stood on my head on the tops of mountains, planked on beaches and enjoyed the feeling of Shavasana (corpose pose) in quiet green spaces. Whenever you find a quiet, flat space, where you feel safe to do a little yoga, and you’re not bothering anyone else, go for it! But just to repeat – make sure it’s safe!
Yoga is a gentle activity but you can injure yourself if you don’t do it right. I ended up injuring my rotator cuff in January of last year with a poorly positioned side plank that I held for far too long even when my arm was screaming for me to stop. I’ve heard of people seriously injuring their necks doing headstands. Learn how to do the poses properly, either with an instructor or using online teaching, and if it hurts, STOP.