daily yoga – Master Mom Stress

I hate to sound cliche, but I think it’s safe to say that daily yoga has changed my life.

For real, ya’ll.

But before I get into it, let me back up a minute for anyone who is new to my blog and unaware of what’s been going on.

I started a daily yoga practice at the beginning of 2021, originally taking a 30-day challenge – which lead to my continuing the practice by using the free yoga calendars provided by Yoga with Adriene.

Side note: At the end of March, I switched to a paid membership through Sarah Beth Yoga and I’ve been working on her 31-day Slow Down calendar for April. (The switch from Adriene to Sarah wasn’t anything personal. They each have different styles of teaching yoga and for this season of life, I’m sticking with Sarah’s chill vibes.) For May, I’m using her Happy Yogi calendar.

Today, I’m amazed that I’ve completed over 115 days of practice. It doesn’t even feel like we’ve been living life in 2021 long enough to say that, but it’s true. And, honestly, once I finished the first 30 days, all the days afterwards just flew by.

So, that’s the brief backstory. I’ve written a post about how those first 30 days went here and another post with tips for maintaining a daily yoga practice here. If you’re interested, feel free to check those out.

But for today’s post, I want to share with you some of the health benefits I’ve experienced this year as a result of my daily yoga practice. Remember, your experience could be different than mine, but I wanted to still share how my daily yoga has benefited me in case it’s something you’re considering.*

*Be sure you’ve got the all-clear from your doctor before starting any exercise practice. While yoga is definitely more gentle than other forms of exercise, it can still be intense so keep that in mind.

A few things I want to point out first

I’ll explain a little bit more about each of the health benefits I experienced from daily yoga in a few minutes, but first I just wanted to remind you that I’m not a medical professional. I can only share what I’ve personally felt and experienced.

Some of the health benefits I experienced could also have been the result of other lifestyle changes/circumstances that had nothing to do with my yoga practice.

For example, I completed a 30-day meditation practice during the month of March that overlapped with my daily yoga practice.

I also introduced a new supplement (tumeric)in mid-January (for inflammation).

Therefore, it’s hard to say with certainty that the benefits I’m experiencing are strictly from my daily yoga. I just wanted to put that out there so that you can keep that in mind as you read on.

What studies say about frequent yoga

Let’s start with some background context – yoga studies conducted by medical professionals – so that you can get a better idea of how my experience lines up with what others have experienced. Of course, my daily yoga practice at home can’t compare to what was done in these studies, but it’s close enough of a comparison for you to get an idea. Bottom line: it shows that my experience isn’t isolated.

Sometime last year (2020), Time Magazine released a special edition called “Alternative Medicine: The New Mainstream.” On page 30 was an article about yoga by Lesley Alderman that cited an Ohio State University College of Medicine study where they compared 25 newbie yogis with 25 expert yogis.

The expert yogis (people who’d been practicing at least twice a week for a year or more), had “lower blood levels of interleukin-6, a marker of inflammation that often results from stress.” The study also revealed that the “IL-6 levels in the expert yogis increased less after they were subjected to stressors.”

In the same article, Alderman cited another study from Boston University School of Medicine. Two groups of people were monitored for 12 weeks: “one group walked for 60 minutes three times a week; the other spent the same amount of time doing yoga.”

The yoga group reported lower levels of anxiety and a greater improvement in mood.”

Chris Streeter, one of the authors in that study, said “Yoga may work in part by correcting imbalances in the autonomic nervous system caused by stress.”

Finally, in another study Alderman cited from the University of Pennsylvania, they “found that after completing a three-month yoga course, participants with hypertension had significantly lower blood pressure.“

My daily yoga experience

Most of the health benefits I noticed were physical in nature, however, I can’t deny the emotional health benefits. Like some of the yogis in the studies I mentioned above, I feel like stressful events don’t get under my skin as much as they did before. And my recovery time, emotionally, after something stressful is much less.

This isn’t a new benefit for me. I’ve noticed this same effect in the past, whenever I’d made a point of practicing yoga regularly (as in multiple times a week). Prior to this year, I never had a routine practice. I’d go through seasons of life where I’d practice often, and then I’d back off and practice irregularly. But I always noticed that when I was practicing regularly, I did feel that effect of bouncing back quicker after stressful moments.

But here is my list of the changes to my health that I’ve noticed this year:

stronger core / increased ab strength
looser hips / hamstrings
better range of motion (neck & shoulder)
natural hip realignment (it “popped” back into place; it was loud)
calmer mind / less stressed

These are all pretty self-explanatory. My body is clearly in better physical shape. But what I’m most excited about is the mental health benefit of feeling calmer.

And I know I’m calmer because I tracked my mood for the months of March and April and “calm” was the mood I felt most of the time, with “okay” being second. (For me, “okay” is sorta like answering neutral in those personality tests when you don’t feel swayed one way or the other. Not good, not bad.)

I also tracked my stress levels during the same time period, and on a scale of 1 to 5 (1 being low stress, 5 being high), I recorded a stress level of 1 for 38 days and stress level 2 for 17 days.

I’m so glad I tracked these things because it’s helped me actually see that I really do feel calmer and less stressed and that I’m not just sugar coating and forgetting the bad days. I know that the tendency when we reflect back is to only remember the hard times, but clearly, I’m having far more calm and low-stress days than anything else.

I think another thing to point out here is that just because I’ve felt calm and low-stress for most of the time doesn’t mean that I haven’t felt any stress at all. I have noticed that I don’t allow stressful moments to totally take over my mood for the entire day. My daily average mood might be calm, but I’ll also experience moments of annoyance, happiness or sadness.

What I’m trying to say is that it seems like my mind automatically resets back to calm when other fleeting emotions pass. In yoga, we are taught to return to the breath, return to the mat, focus on right now. Yoga (and meditation) has trained my brain to reset back to a neutral (okay) or zen (calm) state because I’m not attaching my mood to the events that are making me feel annoyed, sad or stressed.

Is daily yoga the only factor contributing to how I feel?

Probably not. But considering the studies that have been done on yoga, I’d say that it’s definitely a factor.

In mid-December 2020, when I first learned about Yoga with Adriene’s Breath: A 30 Day Yoga Journey, I knew right away that I wanted to be a part of it. What I didn’t know was just how transformative it would prove to be.

In today’s post, I’ll let you in on how it felt to go through her thirty-day yoga journey as I share the feelings and emotions that came up for me throughout the journey. By sharing my experiences, I hope that you’ll be inspired to take your own thirty-day yoga journey.

Two-Weeks Pre-Journey

I. Caught. COVID-19.

Yeah. THAT happened. And one of the first thoughts I had was, “Great, I’m already going to have to back out of my thirty-day yoga commitment before it even begins.” While sick, I didn’t practice any yoga or any type of activity that didn’t involve lounging around in my pajamas. Thankfully, I never fell horribly ill and by the time January 1st rolled around, I felt well enough to return to my yoga mat.

Take that, COVID!

30 Days of Yoga: Week One

Just before noon on day five of my yoga journey, I was alarmed by a pain in my chest. This was a new pain I’d never felt before and it scared me enough to spike my anxiety and heartrate. I immediately rushed to my doctor.

Under her direction, I went to the emergency room. I was released a little after sundown, with the diagnosis of costochondritis – a lingering inflammation symptom of many COVID patients and those with other respiratory colds or infections.

Relieved that it wasn’t anything worse, I still managed to step onto my yoga mat that evening, knowing full well that if I felt uncomfortable, I could always stop. That practice felt amazing. I spent the entire time thinking how wonderful it is to be alive.

FU, costochondritis!

30 Days of Yoga: Week Two

By day 14, having never completed that many days of yoga in a row, I started to get emotional for no reason and felt anxiety rise up in my throat and chest. Knowing that I tend to carry stress in my shoulders, I wondered if all the yoga was triggering an emotional release similar to what I experience the day after a good massage. That morning, I decided to do a tapping meditation to see if it would help. It led me to cry my eyes out.

2020 was an extremely emotional and stressful year for me (as I’m sure it probably was for you, too). During this second week of yoga, I started to think that maybe all the heart-opening poses were peeling away layers, with each layer shed allowing for deeper emotional healing.

I realized then that this yoga journey was much more than just getting back in touch with my breath. For me, it was becoming a way to release stress, stresses that I didn’t realize I was still carrying.

30 Days of Yoga: Week Three

The day after I cried, I had this to say over on Instagram:

I’m proud of myself for making it through 14 days of yoga! Today is day 15 (out of 30) and I feel giddy.”

That day, the start of week three, I asked the Yoga with Adriene “Find What Feels Good” community about my experiences over the first two weeks and others shared with me that they, too, felt the same way. I wasn’t alone.

I started the yoga journey because I thought it would be a fun way to challenge myself, to develop a healthier relationship with my breath, but I never thought about the emotional component of it. I’ve never been one to feel any sort of emotional breakthrough on the mat, so that was a whole new experience for me.

On day 15, I felt like a heavy cloud had been lifted. I didn’t even realize how dark I’d been walking around until that day. Yoga was turning out to be extremely therapeutic.

30 Days of Yoga: Week Four

On day 24, I felt extra giddy. It’s unusual for me to feel so cheerful, so when I’m like that, I always notice.

On days 23 and 24, my downward dogs started to finally feel like I was doing them right! I’ve always known that you’re supposed to grip into your fingertips, but I’ve always felt like my weight was always just going into my wrists. I never knew how to correct it. But then, it corrected itself on day 23. I thought, “Whoah, so THAT’S what it’s supposed to feel like.“

By this point in the journey, I’d felt incredibly proud of the progress I’d made and I started noticing little things shift for me while off the mat (like sitting up straighter and being able to lift my leg in the shower to shave with ease). I was pumped to see how the final week was going to play out!

On Day 24, in the “Find What Feels Good” community, we were asked:

Are you finding that your yoga practice is spilling off your mat and into your everyday life, either in small ways or big ways?”

My answer: “I’m definitely more energetic, not in the sense that I’m bouncing around as though I drank too much coffee, but in the sense that my mood is lighter and so I’m mentally wanting to be more productive (a big difference compared to most of 2020).“

I still feel that way today.

30 Days of Yoga: The Final Days

On day 28’s practice, the theme was “Heal.” I thought nothing of it when I was on the mat. I just did my 20 minutes of yoga before bed, and turned in for the night.

Then, a crazy thing happened.

Laying in bed, about to fall asleep, I randomly thought about an event that happened to me in 2009 and I started crying. It caught me off guard.

“Why the eff am I thinking about this and crying about this right now? That was so long ago. What the heck?”

Then, I remembered that day’s yoga theme: heal.

Crap. Apparently, it was time to shed another layer and heal another emotional wound.

I thought about what I could say to the Lauren of 2009 to help her heal. So I told her the truth: “You did nothing wrong. You are an honest person. It wasn’t personal. It wasn’t your fault.”

When I first started crying, I thought, “Oh, Lord, I’m going to be crying forever!” But as soon as I told myself those words, my crying slowed down, I took a deep breath, inhaled lots of love in, exhaled lots of love out, and I fell peacefully to sleep.

30 Days of Yoga: The Last Day

Anxious to know what day 30 was going to be (because until then, we didn’t have information other than the word “BEGIN”), I checked my email first thing in the morning (something I NEVER do) and looked for an email from Adriene. She explained that, for day 30, she would take off her mic and would practice yoga alongside us.

This should be interesting.

And it was interesting. I tried to predict what our next move would be and most of the time, I was right. Sometimes, I was in sync with Adriene, other times I was a few beats behind. The whole time, I kept mentally hearing Adriene say, “inhale lots of love in, exhale lots of love out.”

What was the most shocking to me though, for that final practice, was how I about lost it and nearly boo-hoo cried (in a good way) during our first mountain pose. I don’t know if it was because of the energy of the pose or the playlist she selected for that day’s practice. I really don’t know. But, it was a new experience for me. Because, like I said before, I’m not usually one to get emotional ON my mat. And even if I did, mountain pose would be the last place I’d expect that to happen.

Of course, I really almost lost it just before we said “Namaste.” I know that was 100% because I could tell Adriene was about to lose it herself. I’m pretty sure she sat there crying afterward. Bless her heart. I loved doing her yoga videos before this journey. And now, I just love her.

My Final Thoughts

I did yoga every damn day for thirty days.

I did that! Yes, me.

I don’t think I’ve ever committed to doing anything for thirty days (before you think it, marriage and having kids don’t count). I’m usually the one who says I hate routines and doing something for thirty days sounds pretty damn routine. However, it never felt routine because I never practiced at the same time every day. And each video was different, no two ever felt the same.

To think that around this time last year, I was still only doing diastasis recti safe yoga poses and workouts. I never thought that I’d be sitting here today, able to hold a plank for longer than every member of my household (yes, we had a friendly, family competition). I can lift up my six-year-old now without even thinking twice about it. My core feels strong!

Physical accomplishments aside, I feel similar to how I felt after the first time I delivered one of my kids without any pain medications – I feel like a superwoman! Unstoppable. Unbreakable. (Is that a Carrie Underwood song?)

I feel…

… inspired to take on more 30 day challenges.
… like all the yucky stress from 2020 has been sweated out, cried out, and released.
… excited about the future (though still very uncertain).

Most notably, I have hope.

I’m pleased to report that I’m still doing yoga every day. By the time this post goes out, I will have been doing yoga for 38 days. My hope is that I can continue to use a yoga calendar (like the one Adriene put together) to help me stay consistent with practicing yoga every day.

While I’ve always been a fan of yoga since discovering it to help manage pain, I’m now officially obsessed. (I’m going to have to go buy more yoga pants.)

My hope is that by continuing my daily yoga practice, I can prevent stress from permeating into all cracks and crevasses of my life. Yoga can be a key part of my preventative medicine rather than something I only turn to when I want to workout.

Thank you, yoga and Adriene, for helping me let go of the old so that I can make room for the new.

Interested in Doing Yoga for 30 Days?

If you think you might want to try doing yoga every day for thirty-days like I did, you can learn more about Yoga with Adriene’s “Breath: A 30 Day Journey” here.

If you decide to participate, let me know so I can cheer you along! If you’ve already completed Yoga with Adriene’s Breath, I’d love to hear how your experience went. Drop your comment below or sent me a DM on Instagram.

You can find Yoga with Adriene on YouTube here and her Instagram here.

115 Days of Yoga Later: The Health Benefits I’ve Noticed