Finding Balance Through Yoga — Emma’s Journey.
In the fast-paced and demanding world that we live in, achieving balance can feel like an elusive dream. Amidst the stress of daily hustle-and-bustle, it is often all too easy for us to lose touch with ourselves, putting unnecessary stress on our bodies and nervous systems.
In this article I chat to Emma, a vestibular migraine warrior, who made a life change from overworked teacher to mindful yoga practitioner and the benefits that shift can have for our physical and mental health.
Navigating Challenges While Inspiring Futures
Emma’s story begins five years into her career as a primary school teacher, a job she loved, but over time took its toll.
“I started having health issues when I was teaching, with various physical health symptoms cropping up, so, yes, I was definitely mentally struggling and had a lot of anxiety. But I also felt dizzy — my vision wasn’t quite right. I was just really struggling with balance, vertigo, and had a lot of tinnitus and everything kind of sensory-wise was completely out of whack…then it ended up being a process of elimination to determine that it was a vestibular migraine because there isn’t a test for it.”
Long days, late nights and all the trimmings that accompany teaching had finally taken their toll on Emma.
“My body was just like… no more now. You have to stop.”
Emma had to be signed off work unwell, and yoga was one of the first things that she was able to start doing once she felt able to start getting back out there again.
“It was like okay, so… I’m not well enough to go out and even walk at this point but I can get my mat out in my living room and roll around on the floor and do some stretches… and that feels like something!”
The impact of slowing down
“It took me about a year before I actually even knew what was going on. That whole year I was just terrified because no one knew what was happening to me and I just couldn’t see the world in the way that I knew I should be able to see it. It was a really scary place to be in.”
Yoga, with its combination of physical postures (asanas) and focused breathing techniques (pranayama), can have profound positive effects on our bodies.
“If I didn’t make time for yoga and meditation, I don’t know if my brain would ever get any downtime — apart from when I’m asleep. And I think when you’re a teacher, that is the truth. Your brain is buzzing all day, through lunches, breaks…
…I probably lived my life in fight and flight for the whole five years I’d been teaching…
…but I think anybody that has a potential for a health condition to be in the body… if you do a job, like teaching, you are probably gonna bring it out of you because it’s putting your body under such stress.”
Stepping into your favourite version of you
Yoga continues to have a profound impact on Emma’s life, as it does for many other people. Beyond the physical stuff like improving posture or stretching your body after being on your feet all day, yoga is like a personal mental reset button. The word self-care gets thrown around a lot on social media, but yoga is a tool that really does live up to the hype and help ensure that you feel your best, not only as a teacher but also in every other area of your life.
Emma believes, “you’ve got two separate camps with yoga. Some people come to yoga for the physical benefits and some come for the mental health benefits, and I think both are equally important. They feed into each other because I found that my health condition, even though it’s very physical in the way that it presents itself, it’s triggered by my mental health. If I’m stressed the physical stuff gets worse. If the physical stuff gets worse, I’m going to feel more anxious, so they are very closely linked. Even if you go into it for one thing, the chances are there’s a benefit for both of them.”
If you are a busy teacher, have a balance disorder, or just want to find out a bit more about how yoga could help you, get in touch with Emma through her socials below:
