Yoga Changed the Way I See the World

If someone were to ask me the best non-academic habit to pick up in college, I would always tell them to start practicing yoga. I never would have guessed two years ago when I started college that it would become a part of my daily life.

Photo by lululemon athletica via Flickr

As a former competitive swimmer, there was always a part of me that assumed that the best way to live a healthy lifestyle was through rigorous training and pure dedication. It was simply the way I was taught to operate and there was never any question of how I was going to try and stay healthy and fit while I was up at school. It had never occurred to me why yoga was so popular until I began to practice it regularly myself.

The first time I was ever exposed to it was when my best friend invited me to a hot yoga class the summer between freshman and sophomore year. She was a major proponent of it and wanted to share the experience with me. There was no other word to describe the experience other than awful. I paid $12 to be stuck in a 100 degree room with 15 other people trying to extend muscles I didn’t even know I had. I didn’t even take the time to appreciate the valued child’s pose or ending the hour and half of what then was akin to torture by meditating in shavasana. Frustrated with how little I knew of the practice, I vowed never to go again. It was only until I made it to a couple more classes during the duration of the summer that I began to appreciate what it was doing for me physically.

Coming into the fall of my sophomore year, I didn’t pick up yoga again for a couple of months. Only after I was invited to join a friend for a class at the Leach did I decide to try it once again. I don’t know if it was the instructor or just the change of scenery by being in Tallahassee, but out of nowhere I began to fall in love with not only how I was feeling physically, but mentally as well. Being greeted with the affirmations each day of “Just breathe,” and “Appreciate all that your body can do,” completely changed my outlook on life. I learned to value what I could do and focus less on what I couldn’t. I began to compare myself to myself as opposed to others, and learned that even if I couldn’t land a pose, I would eventually get there. Where I couldn’t even balance in a side plank two years ago, now I’m able to land headstands. Yoga taught me to believe in what your body and mind can do, and to value even a few precious moments just by breathing. It is truly any college student’s best stress reliever.