Why I was too uptight for yoga before...now it's the perfect way to deal with finding my inner calm

We just clapped the NHS. It was nice. My housemate, Emma, works for the NHS, so I asked her whether she wanted us to just clap around her. She laughed, but didn’t say no.

In other news, I’ve taken up yoga. I have ‘tried’ yoga many times over the years, always feeling it to be something I theoretically would enjoy – a calming exercise, a focus on mindfulness, an excuse to buy more expensive yoga pants - it just always seemed like my kind of class.

Now we’re all at home for the foreseeable future, I’ve taken to doing Yoga with Adriene classes on YouTube.

I can’t tell you how much I’ve enjoyed it.

For the first time, I understand the zen people find in yoga.

I swear, after a 40-minute practise in the garden last week, I slowly and intentionally made my dinner in silence, feeling a new inner calm that could have only been bestowed upon me by the Buddha himself.

I was at one.

I was trying to figure out why I hadn’t liked yoga in the past. I’ve landed on two reasons.

1) I was attempting yoga way beyond my difficulty level; believing the peaceful thing was a farce; and abandoning ship before I was lured any deeper into what was clearly some kind of cult.

2) I was too uptight.

Perhaps it’s the slowing down that’s given me the opportunity to appreciate yoga in all its wonder.

Maybe I’m just bored. But the days definitely are longer now. We’re carrying out each task with more intent and only have each other to talk to, which means it’s the perfect time to try something new.

I’m trying to ‘take each day as it comes’.

Sometimes I feel a little unsure of everything, so I just wander over to one of my housemates and wait for them to say something.

On other days, I have a weird zest for life and excitement for everything to return to normality, like a continual Christmas Eve, minus the wrapping paper.

Yesterday I felt deflated. Like the news stories and the statistics and the bodies were piling up and there was no gap to let the light in. Sometimes this whole thing feels like a dream.

The monotony of day-to-day life - the traffic jams and parking tickets and adventures to other cities and restaurants and bars, and ballet classes and movies at the cinema - it all feels impossibly far away.

And I never knew the comfort in going to bed at night knowing people are out laughing and dancing and drinking. And now I know I’m one of millions, billions even, curled up with a knot of anguish in their stomach, silently hoping that tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow will be better.

But I’ve found with the help of friends, video calls with family and maybe even a little yoga - the news stories, the statistics and the bodies are slowly lifted and a tiny sliver of light passes through.