I was an overworked communications consultant servicing high-profile government clients in the UAE that frankly left me depleted on most days. My burnout wasn't sudden. It was a slow confluence of many factors - as it always is. Back then, I had no tools to mitigate its pervasive effects - let alone prevent them.  

 

I failed to recognise the signs of burnout early on. And it flared.

 

I got diagnosed with dermatographia aka a skin writing autoimmune disease often triggered by chronic stress. This was in 2019. Of course this shook me no end but I still didn't know how to make a sustainable change.  

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Out of sheer desperation, I turned to yoga. 

 

Growing up in India, yoga had always been around -  hidden in plain sight. But I never really thought of myself as 'yoga type'. 

I started small. Just 5 minutes a day. That's all I could manage. But the consistency made all the difference. With those few minutes, I got better at mindfulness, I learnt to harness the therapeutic qualities of movement and breath when doing asanas (yoga poses). and I experienced the yogic are of deep, restorative rest. 

 

Within just a few weeks, I noticed tangible shifts in my well-being.  
More presence, less overthinking.
More vitality, less fatigue.
More agency in my choices, guided by yogic principles like vairagya (detachment), santosha (contentment) and tapas (discipline).