Meet Rachel Zinman @yogafordiabetesblog sharing her #yogasavedmylife story with us. These are her words 💚
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"I’ve been living & loving yoga since I was 17 (over 35 years of my life).
Until my diagnosis I’d been a passionate advocate for yoga, health & wellbeing, practicing & teaching globally for over 25 years, in fact, I believed yoga was a cure all but in spite of all the energy & effort I put into a daily practice, I collapsed
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I thought it was burnout from teaching too many classes. I was wrong! Tests revealed elevated blood sugar levels. I was convinced doctors had made a mistake & tried to deny the diagnosis but there was no way out. The day after my diagnosis I sat on my mat & wept. Why had I bothered with yoga? Why was this happening to me?
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The feeling of helplessness didn’t last. I had to see things differently to come to terms with my diagnosis. Type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune condition with no known cause or cure. It's onset triggered by a combination of genetics & environmental factors. Maybe yoga wasn’t a cure in the way that I thought it was. Perhaps yoga was the reason the diabetes didn’t show itself sooner
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Now I’m convinced that the stress management tools, asanas & the ayurveda ( the sister science to yoga) actually saved my life. This revelation has been fuel for me to dive deeper. To commit to a practice that is nourishing, calming for my nervous system & specific to my constitution & to reach out & help others in the diabetes community & the yoga community. I have turned my condition into a mission to help & serve others. Last year I launched a book on the subject for anyone living with diabetes to bring yoga into their daily diabetes management plan
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So why is yoga fantastic for diabetes management? Because it helps to keep blood sugar levels in check, increases insulin sensitivity so you don’t need to inject as much & it reduces stress, so the nervous system recovers quicker from a low or high blood sugar. Most importantly: Yoga reminds us, through its deeper meaning, that we have a condition, we can never be the condition🙏"
