How yoga helped a woman cope with mental health issues
As Malta witnesses an increased drive towards mental health awareness, with the need for improved psychiatric services recently flagged by the medical sector, stories emerge highlighting not only the problems that patients face but also the success stories that offer inspiration.
Janet Vella’s story is one of the latter. When Janet, 44, casually accepted her friend’s suggestion to follow a yoga workout, little did she imagine that the seemingly simple routine would open the door to a new life.
Janet, a dance instructor by profession, remembers she had been visiting a friend in the UK when her eureka moment hit. The survivor of multiple suicide attempts, and still plagued by chronic anxiety and depression, she was staying for a short while in London to recoup her energies.
“I was going stir crazy at my friend’s apartment. Up till then, dance had been my only mental release, the one thing that put a barrier between me and my demons. But a very difficult childbirth which led to physical repercussions meant I could not dance for a very long while. My mental health was deteriorating fast,” the woman says.
Trying to take her mind off things through physical movement, Janet worked her...