Breathing better—together
My interest in yoga developed slowly—not the “pretzel” kind, which I found intimidating—but the stretching, holding, and breathing kind. When the pandemic hit, I craved certainty during uncertainty and calmness during chaos. I couldn’t put my finger on exactly why yoga helped me through; I just knew that I felt more balanced and less edgy. Turns out, it was the breath that grounded me. So simple, so life changing. In “Finding the Yogi Within,” Joy S. boils it down: “Really, any yoga helps calm my racing mind. I think it’s more about the breathing than the movement.” And research supports this: Adding yoga to our bipolar management helps not only with mood swings but also anxiety, that common co-occurrence of overwhelming worry that shares symptoms with, and feeds into, bipolar depression…