Yoga became the most popular digital workout of the pandemic, with the number of followers in the UK growing by 25%, which I contributed to. While yoga is good physical exercise, I’d argue it’s even better for the mind.

The ancient practice of yoga originated from India and blends mental, physical and spiritual disciplines, with the aim of bringing more peace and balance to the yogi’s life. The word’s meaning is “union”, in the sense that it brings you to a reality. One that many haven’t unlocked yet, especially since the pandemic blew our reality apart. Could yoga help us recover, both mentally and physically?

I know this practice was something that kept me rooted in the months stuck in my house. Spending days cooped up in bed and sofa made my body heavy like a rock. Finding this practice breathed a new life into me. But real life returned, university started again, I went back to work and my routine of well-being was blown out of the water. I could feel in the way I carried myself that I was missing something.

Paula Stei, a yoga teacher who left her corporate life behind to be taught the practice by monks in India, is a believer that everyone starts yoga for the physical benefits, but it transforms into something more. “I’m very much confident that the physical is only about 5% of what yoga actually is,” Stei explains. “The values, lifestyles, the wholesomeness of it, the tradition,” these are the hidden gems rooted in this exercise. Ones that a grow within you as you practice.

Over her six years as a yogi, it’s the values Stei feels everyone can identify with. As an atheist herself it’s something she found she can grow with. “I feel it’s important for people’s identities to feel like you relate to something, relate to a certain set of values.” The practice is focused on you as a person, how you act within the world and ultimately how you treat yourself and others.

Megan Varcoe, a 21-year-old interior design student based in Newcastle, is a fellow regular yogi. One who started yoga in the lockdown, just like me. “It let me have a routine. It made me happier,” in days when we had nothing, she says. Even after just a couple of months Varcoe felt yoga working its magic. She admits that the physical benefits were subtle, it was the mental benefits that brought joy. Practicing yoga has many benefits with 69% of regular yogis reporting a positive increase in mood. “If I do it in the morning my day definitely goes better, it puts you in a better mindset,” Varcoe explains.

Stei keeps circling back to tranquillity as she speaks. “You need to remind yourself to take a breath, take a step back, take a moment,” then ultimately it will become engrained in your lifestyle, she says. Stei goes further, “if you look scientifically any type of exercise will bring dopamine in your brain. In yoga you work with breath a lot. Scientifically again, if you breathe deeper, it’ll calm you down.”

In 2018 an Irian medical study conducted on 52 women, who lived in Ilam, with anxiety and depression noted a decrease in symptoms after just 12 sessions of yoga. Even stating in their results that is could be used as complementary medicine. And today it has never been so accessible. The most popular yogi youtuber, Yoga with Adrienne, has over 8 million subscribers and posts a variety of free content.

In an age of an ongoing pandemic and just general life’s daily stresses, perhaps we should all try this practice towards peace and harmony. Like Stei says, “you have to be a really negative person if you think yoga does nothing to you, I mean it’s been going for thousands of years.”