5 Ways Yoga has Helped Me With Gaining Strength Back

Ashleigh Livingston
Dec 13, 2018
2 min read

Imagine one day you wake up and lose a ton of physical strength. Well that happened to me earlier this year. I became the girl who once dead lift 175lbs and now I sometimes struggle even opening a water bottle. Since becoming diagnosed with Lupus lifting weights became too much for me physically and even doing simple every day tasks became physically exhausting for me. (However, now I'm working on getting back to lifting weights!) For those of you that know me fitness and lifting weights is such a huge part of my life, shoot I even went to school and studied it for years and I still study it lol. In today's blog I discuss how practicing yoga and stretching has helped me with working up to lifting light weights again and building a better mentality! YAYYYYYY!!!

I started doing yoga by researching beginners yoga on youtube! I found a few simple youtube videos and I eventually stumbled across Kokoro Yoga created by Mark Divine and I immediately loved it! On the days where I wasn't strong to do a full Kokoro Yoga youtube video I did Quick Yoga which is 10 minute yoga videos on Amazon Prime. These videos helped me so much physically and mentally.

1. Yoga has helped with my range in motion. After not being able to exercise for a while I realized that I wasn't able to get full range in motion like I had once before. By incorporating yoga I was able to ease into working on my mobility and progressively I am gaining range in motion back. Yessssss!

2. Yoga challenged me a lot, and I like a good challenge! Have you ever tried to be completely still before? It's a lot more difficult than you think lol!

3. My mentality improved after each yoga session. I slowly started to gain confidence back in myself and my mind became more relaxed.

4. Yoga helped me control my breathing which in turn helped me remain calm whenever I became under stress from Lupus flare ups. (Thank you Kokoro Yoga and Mark Divine for teaching me the Box Breathing method!)

5. Practicing yoga each morning or before bed helped me really get in tune with my body again and by that I mean that mind and muscle connection. What a great way to focus and release tension!

Overall, yoga has had many benefits for me and is a great form of relaxation while still being a challenge! I still use yoga to this day even if it's a quick 10 minute session or I'll just stretch. I realized the most important thing for us humans is to get moving, whether if it's yoga, stretching, or going on a walk. Living a sedentary life isn't good for your health, so get up and get moving!

P.S. Hope you enjoyed this blog! Have a great rest of your week!