How Yoga saved my ass

And why it’s great that your body keeps the score

Maybe you have read my introduction, maybe not. If you have, you already got a glimpse of the dramatic circumstances that changed my life. Not immediately, but eventually. And what role the mental and physical training played in all of that. Here’s the full story of why Yoga will always have a special place in my heart. 

Choosing the path

Like many of us, I was on track for many years. I followed the path that seemed so well-suited, studied the intellectual and financially rewarding subject (law) instead of the creative subject I was passionate about (classical music and being on stage singing). I white-knuckled my way through law school, while spiraling deeper and deeper into the extremes. More workouts, stricter diet, more perfection, less pleasure, more parties, less deep relationships. It was already in the early years of school that I kept getting signals from my body. And they became permanent.

Muscle tension, jaw clenching at night, headaches, migraines, a nervous stomach. And I tackled it with more workouts, more distractions. A massage here and there. In hindsight, these were all very loud and clear signals my body used to tell me that something was going wrong here. But, hey, everyone around me was kinda stressed. And working a lot and studying hard is nothing that is frowned upon, rather the opposite. And nobody loved the subject, it was a means to a good job. Nothing more, nothing less. Quitting was not an option. Not even remotely. It was completely impossible to even think about quitting or doing something else. So, I just kept going.

I did all kinds of sports, mostly running, but also HIIT and strength training. Yoga was a very regular part of my life at that time, but solely as a fitness modality. And meditation served purely as a means to getting my fear of failure under control. And there was a lot of it, so I meditated a lot. Time passed, I graduated.  

Good girl on track

And I went on to pursue a doctorate in law. It wasn’t as much for the prestige of the title as it was for the sake of having time to focus on one subject for a long time and the chance to dive deep into an academic subject of interest without distraction. I followed my boyfriend at the time to Munich, and scored a really great position at a renowned research institute. I loved it. I met super nice colleagues, got accepted as a candidate by the professor of my choice and got a job offer before I even finished and published my thesis. Good girl on track. 

I still gave my creative and musical side a lot of room. Found a really ambitious choir where I could follow my love for singing. Found a fantastic voice teacher, the most impressive jazz and opera singer, composer and woman. I joined an opera ensemble and had the chance to be on stage in various productions as part of the ensemble and as a soloist. Just writing this gives me happy goosebumps lol. 

All in all, everything looked picture-perfect. Nice job, doctorate in law, nice career, nice apartment, nice boyfriend. Musical talent, lots of concerts, being on stage. Well, not so nice on the inside. My relationship was ultra challenging and not only not supportive, it drained the shit out of me. My own fault, of course, there’s no one else to blame, but it was what it was. Draining. Depleting. Exhausting. The stress of working a demanding job and finishing the doctorate thesis at night, during the weekends and on vacations while imposing impossible standards on myself, trying so hard to make this relationship work, having a perfect household, working out five times a week, hair and nails done (you know the drill, ladies), performing in multiple ensembles and productions on a semi-professional level with its long and physically demanding rehearsals, took its toll.  

Game over

And one day, it was game over. It was a hot summer day in July 2013. One day before a vacation. I had felt a bit off and dizzy the entire day, but didn’t think much of it. I had a million things on my to-do list and my mind was racing. I had squeezed in a visit at my favorite hair salon to get my hair cut. And as I sat there, I started to feel lightheaded. They gave me some cool pads, because we all thought it was just the heat and the salon didn’t have air conditioning. Well, it wasn’t the heat. My nervous system decided to hit the breaks, because I wouldn’t. I passed out and every time I woke up, I was experiencing unstoppable vertigo and horrible nausea accompanied by - well, sorry for the unpleasant pictures in your head - heavy vomiting. Embarrassing is an understatement.

The ambulance arrived. They had to push me in a wheelchair, because I was unable to walk or even stand up. Emergency room. Luckily, there was a doctor who recognized the condition (it’s called Neuritis Vestibularis) and made sure I was sent to another specialized clinic in the city. Turns out, Munich has one of the world’s most famous clinical research departments for vertigo. Lucky me. Yay. 

The next day, I went through a series of physical tests. They checked everything, vision, inner ear and brain functions. It isn’t entirely clear what causes this condition, but it is most definitely invoked by a virus during phases of extreme stress that affects nerves and shuts down the connection to the brain, similar to herpes outbreaks or acute hearing loss. In my case, it affected the nerve in my left inner ear that is connecting the equilibrium organ to the brain. So, basically, you lose the ability to walk, because it is impossible to keep the balance without both of those organs functioning properly. Your brain and your eyes lose orientation if they don’t get coherent information from both your inner ears. So you constantly feel like being drunk and riding a carousel at the same time. And not in a fun way.

The body keeps the score, for real 

During one of these tests, I had to stand on a very wobbly board, think of the feeling on a standup paddle board, and perform all kinds of poses. Standing on one foot, standing on two feet, but with the feet in one line behind each other, looking up, down, looking left and right, eyes open, eyes closed and so on. 

And once I was done, the doctor asked me about my physical activities. She said my ability to balance immediately after the nerve shutdown was remarkable. My results were better than those of most healthy people without any impairment. And at that point, I couldn’t even walk by myself. Everything around me was spinning like crazy. I couldn’t see clearly, could not turn my head without getting nauseous. I had to hold on to the handrails on the walls in the hospital to get from A to B. But I had such a strong muscle memory and mental focus that I could perform all the balance tests without problems. 

Well, turns out, a childhood and youth of horse-back riding and - first and foremost - a regular Yoga and meditation practice in the years prior to the incident obviously trained my brain pretty well. Or as the doctor put it: “Yoga saved your ass. Keep doing that.” 

Yoga had entered my life as a teenager in the mid 90ies, wayyy before it was hip or cool. I had never heard of any of the famous American “Yoga influencers”. Remember the time before the internet? Yeah, it was that time. I started it, because my Mom did Yoga and I was curious. I liked the stretching, the routine and what I called the mental game. And many years down the line, it paid off. 

Screw the statistics

It was the hardest struggle, but I got up every day in the hospital and forced myself to walk. Even though I was constantly feeling like I just had 10 Tequila shots and basically wanted to lie down, close my eyes and die. But, as you might have guessed by now, giving up is not an option for me ;). So I kept pushing and fighting against gravity and my brain. Fighting against the statistics that said I had a 20% chance of full recovery. Guess what. Screw that. I was able to leave the hospital after a few days. I remember how my parents pushed me to the car in a wheelchair, because I couldn’t walk that far yet. 

So yeah, I found out the hard way what it’s like to have royally fucked up your health by age 30. That trip to the hospital was followed by a months-long struggle to relearn how to walk. And I trained and trained and trained my brain every single day with all the twisting and balancing Yoga poses I could imagine. Walked as much as I could. And it worked. Physically training your brain to focus, to breathe through discomfort, to hang out upside down and in various funny angles, really, really helps your body and brain to recover when parts of your nervous system aren’t functioning properly anymore. My other equilibrium organ, my eyes and brain started compensating for the loss of their buddy in my left inner ear. How awesome is that? And I can walk again. Stand, jump, run, and occasionally balance on my hands.

Thanks, Yoga

Ever since that awful visit to the emergency room, my commitment to my health and mental wellbeing is not just a passion. It is my way of life. A necessity to stay sane if you will. And it is going far beyond just Yoga. There is so much more we can do, mentally and physically. But for today, let’s stop here and say thanks to this ancient practice. Thanks for saving my ass.