Running, Yoga and Finding Serenity

One of my wonderful, long-standing students began running during lockdown and it has become a regular, daily routine. She loves it and is convinced that the regular yoga that she does helps her stay injury free. 

 
Running is better with yoga
Running is simply brilliant if you can do it. It gets you outside, promotes lots of physical benefits, boosts feel good hormones and clears your head.
 
Accompanying it with regular yoga helps you remain injury free, takes care of tight bits that emerge, and provides space to engage with mindful grounding that can help enhance the enjoyment of your running and notice injuries sooner. 
 
 
Maintenance
We all have to take care of maintaining our health, whether it is mental health, physical, emotional and being prepared for what life will inevitably throw at us. We do what we can, what we enjoy, and what we will keep up. And anything is better than nothing. 
 
 
Cultivate more then the physical
One of the understated aspects of yoga, beyond being safer from injury and recovering faster, is the easier, calmer, kinder attitude that we can cultivate with ourselves.
 
As aging unfolds, and limitations are encountered, when we can no longer do what we were used to doing, we can discover that there is another path to being and feeling well.
 
We start to discover and cultivate a more positive relationship with ourselves that doesn’t rely on the abilities of the physical body. We practice finding it easier to accept and even be grateful for the health opportunities and challenges as a part of life and a part of our practice.
 
Yoga can teach and show us how to practice connecting to a more peaceful place that contains us even when everything else is seemingly falling apart. 
 
 
Even better than a healthy body
Even better than remaining injury free, is feeling content when life and body don’t comply with what you would like to happen. 
 
Finding a breath-centred yoga practice gives you skills, techniques and subtle understandings beyond the (wonderful) benefits and effects of postures. When limitations do come up, you have other methods to help you land in that same place. Helping avoid frustration and discomfort and enjoying calm, contentment and serenity as you journey through life no matter whether your body is cooperating with what you would like it to do, or not. 

​Enjoy.