Yoga Just Keeps Making Things Better...

Good morning! After days of sub-zero temperatures, we woke up today to a sweltering 7º! It's gonna be a great day.

I just wanted to share something extraordinary that has happened to me recently. It happened and I didn't even notice.

For the last three (roughly) years, I've woken up, put my feet on the floor and my right ankle immediately started hurting. Almost as if I'd rolled it the day before. I would limp around the house, get my coffee and water and try to work the pain out of it for a few minutes until I would always give up and just put a pair of my lots-of-support running shoes on. And then it would gradually get better throughout the day and the ache wouldn't return until the next morning.

I haven't told a lot of people about this. I knew what I'd hear (because I've heard it with so many other fitness-related things before). I'd hear, "Running/circuit training/whatever I'm doing a lot of this week is ruining your ankle," or "You should rest for a week or two," or (for lack of a better phrase), "I told you so." I've mentioned this before. People like to be naysayers in regards to other peoples' fitness. It's strange, it's probably most of the time not malicious, and it's really hard to hear.

But I digress, as nay saying is not what this post is about.

Here's what I'm getting to. About a month ago, my husband and I ordered Gymbox on our Roku player. They have all of these different classes (spin bike and pilates and yoga and weights and the list goes on!) taught by different instructors a couple of times a week!  And almost every single day for over a month now, I've done yoga. I kept doing it every morning because I realized it was a lot like my morning coffee. It doesn't give me the same coffee jolt or anything, but I do need it to be my most centered, calm self.

I've noticed all of these lovely intangible things since I've started practicing yoga again. I woke up the other morning, got my water (lemon water is a really great way to start your day, by the way) and coffee, did some other things around the kitchen and that's when it hit me. My ankle has no pain anymore. Not even a tightness. It's gone entirely. And the only change I've really made is yoga. 

Yoga will remain a part of my (almost) daily regimen. I used to dismiss it as a kind of hippy-dippy activity, the breathing and the eye-closing... I was wrong. Nothing has made me more organized, more calm in traffic, more willing to follow through, and nothing has fixed that damn ankle. Here's to yoga!