I have been practicing yoga on and off for four years, but never consistently. The majority of my yoga done by watching Yoga With Adriene on YouTube and every year she does a 30 day yoga challenge at the beginning of January. I’ve tried to do the challenge, but most of the time I’ve been unsuccessful. I felt strongly that this was finally my year–and it was! Here are my thoughts about the experience:
My Back
I’ve struggled my whole life with back pain. I have a large chest and scoliosis. To treat it I’ve gone to the chiropractor, has massages and of course yoga here and there. But doing yoga everyday has been a game changer. I’ve gone virtually pain free for the whole month! Not only am I flexing and stretching my spine everyday, but I’ve started to build up core muscle which has helped to stabilize it. I wish I had done this a long time ago.
My Wrists
I used to struggle a lot in poses that put a lot of weight on my wrists such as downward dog. It was really difficult in the beginning, but now I barely feel any pain in my wrists. Of course this is due to actually learning how to spread my weight out, but also daily strength training. I also spend a lot of time typing and writing so the stretching has been really effective in protecting my wrists from carpal tunnel.
My Flexibility
Poses that were difficult in the beginning have gotten increasingly easier for me to get into. Not only that, I can sink deeper into poses and I can tolerate more demanding stretches for longer. The biggest improvement is I can almost bring my feet entirely down during downward dog.
Yoga with Adriene is all about taking it at your own speed for your own body. She encourages modifications and it’s ok to take breaks. There were some days where I couldn’t do the practice, but I didn’t hate myself for that. I just got up the next day and made up what I missed.
I finally did 30 days straight of yoga–it is never too late to take care of yourself.