I remember waking up one morning three years ago, shivering, with a tight knot in my throat and stomach…I held my mum’s hand and told her about my frequent panic attacks. The fatigue and irrational fear were silently killing me. It was truly a crippling feeling.
By Ferina Natasya Aziz, 2017
After years of work-related stress, high cortisone levels and a failed operation (along with post-operative trauma), my body and mind had spiraled into a depressive state. I finally decided to see the doctor and was diagnosed with Generalized Anxiety trDisorder (GAD) and Depression. GAD is a clinical problem where one worries uncontrollably about common occurrences and situations.
Could I have prevented this mental breakdown if I had been more conscious about resting when my body signaled I should and put my mental health as a priority? Yes. I was physically fit and eating well but what I couldn’t see was how seriously my mental and emotional health was being neglected. As they say, if you can’t see something, it doesn’t mean it’s not there.
There are signs that we shouldn’t ignore—when you speak faster than you should, when you reply straight away without really listening to what others are saying, when you’re on your phone all the time, incessantly scrolling without a purpose—these are all subtle signs of possible GAD and Depression that most of us ignore. For an entire year, my mind was on constant fire because of anxiety; and the fatigue would often detach me, as though I had left my own body. “But how did I get here?,” I would often ask myself ever so often.
Yoga had always been a part of my workout routine, and I did hot yoga in the evenings. It was only after I was diagnosed with GAD that I underwent Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) where “deep breathing” was prescribed by the doctors. That’s when I learnt to slow down.
I continued to go to Pranayama classes to understand various kinds of breathing patterns and was soon able to identify how my breath behaved under certain situations. Pranayama helped me understand the connection between breath and movement. Then I went deeper into Ashtanga yoga practice because I was looking for something that I could take with me everywhere: the repetitive sequence allowed me to see my progress and observe how I felt on a daily basis. Ashtanga has now become a self-introspective journey and is a good barometer for me.
My yoga practice deepened after an immersion course in Kuala Lumpur with David Robson, a Canadian Ashtanga yoga teacher, who taught me the importance of alignment and how to prevent injuries. Today I have two mats that I hold dear to my heart—my prayer mat and my yoga mat. While the prayer mat enables me to believe in the higher being, the yoga mat has taught me to have faith in the magic within me.
I no longer presume that yoga is about how long I can hold a Headstand. It is about spirituality, and how we interact with others with compassion. Therapy, meditation sessions or taking medication (do not turn a blind eye to science) are all tools to help us heal—but remember, these are mere tools. The true healer is within you: dig deep.
During therapy, I found respite in writing and photography, and that took me deeper into a world of sharing, and I wanted to become an oracle of holistic information. So I started ‘The Wellness Report’, my digital magazine, almost a year ago, where contributors and wellness experts encourage readers to hit the “pause” button.
As we slow down and inhale deeper, the sense of clarity allows us to live through our actions, reactions, intuitions and instincts—embracing our own likes and dislikes. Allow yourself those daily pauses, to go deep within and rest.
This article was first published in the print edition of Yoga Journal Singapore, which is now Yogahood Online.
