Stretching one’s boundaries

It is so important to keep the mind active and to keep pushing yourself into new situations

Dr Neasa Conneally

The thing about finally finishing your training and getting a few years into your career is that there can be a real feeling of ‘this is it now for the next 30 years’. There are no more major exams or goals to aim for and you get more comfortable with the day to day. However, the years can run into each other and a nice groove can very easily turn into a rut.

I once worked with a colleague who considered every January and September as the start of a new school term and always signed up to a new project, be it Spanish classes or salsa dancing. I loved hearing the latest thing she was up to, but now I see how not only is it a smart way to put shape on a year that can easily fly by and morph into all the others, but also a great way to challenge yourself as an adult. It is in this spirit that I, very much on a whim, one day signed up to do yoga teacher training.

This at first may seem completely mad, but I have been doing yoga since I was an intern, when it was first recommended to me by my surgical SpR who said it was a great way of dealing with the stresses of work and life. Back then, I never would have been that person who would have gone to a gym or a structured exercise class and I definitely would not have been into what I considered any of that ‘woo’ nonsense. However, something just clicked and I immediately loved it. I love how it ties together the connection of the body and mind; how you find yourself only focusing on nothing but your breath and your movement. It is both mindfulness and meditation and also just a really great way to keep the muscles and the joints doing what they should. It kept me sane during Covid, rolling out my mat in my little apartment and doing videos online when we could not go anywhere or meet anyone. It still calms the chattering mind. I find myself craving it at the end of a long week and really feel it if I miss a class.

It’s hard to know what I’ll do with this. I already have a proper grown up job and won’t be giving it up to become a full-time yogi

So here I am, thinking more about musculoskeletal anatomy than I have at any time since first med. The whole experience really brings me back to those college days of being overwhelmed by so much new information, but loving it at the same time. Demonstrating poses to the teacher isn’t that different from being grilled by consultants on ward rounds; we are helping and supporting our fellow classmates with our sun salutations the same way we endlessly practised neurological exams with each other for our OSCEs.

It is extraordinarily humbling to be a beginner again, to know that there are people in the room who are much better than me. I know that I will never be the most flexible or have the perfect ‘yoga body’, but for me that’s not what yoga is about; it is about challenging my body and my mind and meeting where they are on that day. This added challenge of learning how to teach has been such an experience and I already see how it has subtly changed how I approach other challenges in work and life.

It’s hard to know what I’ll do with this. I already have a proper grown up job and won’t be giving it up to become a full-time yogi. I see ‘lifestyle medicine’ is growing as the latest buzzword in medicine and as much as I’d love to literally prescribe yoga or any form of exercise to my patients, I can’t see myself hauling them all up to downward dog myself! Still, never say never. Maybe I will find a way to incorporate this into my role as a GP or do it as a side gig on occasion. If not, I’ve given myself a hell of a task for this spring school term and it has reminded me that I can achieve difficult things. This experience has also reinforced how important it is to keep the mind active and to keep pushing yourself into new situations.

Who knows, maybe next September I’ll go back to brush up on my school French.