How pilates saved my life

Three years ago, during the depths of the pandemic, I was drowning. Like, couldn't keep my head afloat. Juggling a full-time job, family responsibilities, and crippling anxiety and depression.

It was bad. I couldn't get out of bed. Every interaction turned into worst-case scenario in my head. Picking up groceries at Trader Joe's? I would get COVID, pass it on to my family, and they'd die. Getting lunch delivered? The burger would be infected, my sister would eat it, get sick, and die.

These unfounded fears about health and illness ended up crawling into other parts of my life. I was overly worried about everything. My anxiety worsened to the point where I struggled to trust people and began isolating myself.

I knew something needed to change. I couldn't live the way I'd been living anymore. And so I sought professional help. Sharing with a licensed therapist helped reframe my mind. It was a slow process, and one that was not at all linear. Some days I felt better, and other days I regressed. As part of my treatment, I also began daily exercise.

I started with home pilates workouts on YouTube, 20-30 minutes a day. Initially, I'd force myself to lay out my mat and get moving. But gradually, as I built the habit of working out, I began to savor the time I had, just to myself. It was the one time during the day where I wasn't worried anymore. I wasn't thinking about the pandemic or financial responsibilities or the safety of my loved ones. I was solely focused on getting one more crunch in, on holding my plank for three more seconds, on getting one more glute bridge up.

What began as a distraction from my worries started to heal my mind. Each day, during my workouts, I felt my stress melt away. It was a temporary reprieve, but this gave me enough motivation to want to heal. Pilates saved my life.

Before I began working out regularly, I knew intellectually about the mental health benefits of exercise. I'd known since 2001 when Legally Blonde's Elle Woods famously said that "exercise gives you endorphins, endorphins make you happy, and happy people just don't kill their husbands". But it's one thing to know something and another to actually experience it.

I experienced the mental health benefits of exercise first-hand. Along with professional treatment with a licensed therapist, exercise pulled me out of a really dark time in my life. And I'm truly grateful.

Looking to heal your mind with exercise?

Here are some tips:

1. Set reasonable goals. You don't need to be at the gym for two hours every day. Start with 15 minutes two times a week. Follow an online YouTube workout video and see where that takes you.

2. Look good, feel good. I feel most motivated when I'm adequately equipped for a workout — whether that's with equipment or apparel. Some products I use personally are: Bala Bangles (ankle and wrist weights), this TPE yoga mat, these colorful sports tanks.

3. Find an accountability partner. Maybe you commit to meeting your best friend for a walk in your neighborhood each week. Lean on others to keep yourself accountable.

4. Find a form of exercise you actually like — you should be having fun! I know, easier said than done, and it might take you a couple of tries to find something you want to do consistently. But I'm just saying a dance party is just as much a workout as a cardio session.

If you're just getting started, this will be a journey. And I'm not saying that once you start exercising, all your problems will go away. But it certainly will help.