I've spent most of my professional life moving fast.
People who work in Customer Care know exactly what I mean. Calls waiting. Tickets piling up. Priorities changing every hour. Customers needing answers. Teams needing support. Everything feels urgent.
When I was younger, I barely noticed the cost. I used to walk across the office floor wearing 10-centimetre heels. Back then, my body seemed willing to negotiate with any amount of pressure.
You keep running. You keep solving problems. You keep saying yes.
And for a while, it works. Until one day it doesn't.
The slow unravelling
Your back starts hurting. Your shoulders feel permanently tense. You realise you've been carrying stress physically for years without even noticing.
The heels disappear. First from ten centimetres to five. Then to derbies. Loafers. Oxfords. And eventually, thanks to remote work, trainers.
Problem solved. Or so I thought.
Then came the pandemic. Like many people, I suddenly found myself working from home on a small desk with a laptop screen that felt far too small for the amount of work I was trying to do.
So I upgraded. A bigger screen. Then two screens. A gaming chair. A better desk. A better setup.
Curiously, my back still hurt. My shoulders still felt like concrete. And then came the headaches.
The search
So I started looking elsewhere. Supplements. Nootropics. Ashwagandha. Anything promising a little more energy, a little more focus, a little more resilience.
Then my traumatologist suggested yoga.
I can't honestly say yoga changed my life. But it changed something more important. It made me pay attention.
For the first time, I noticed what was happening inside my own head. During savasana, when I was supposedly resting, my mind would return to work. To my family. To unfinished tasks. To things I hadn't done yet. To things I should be doing.
Even relaxation had become another place where responsibility followed me.
And then I noticed something else. Guilt. Guilt for leaving work on time to attend yoga. Guilt for disconnecting. Guilt for being unavailable. Guilt because somebody might need me. Guilt because something might happen.
What I actually found
So I kept searching. A standing desk. Walk meetings. Better habits. More movement. More awareness.
And while all of those things helped, I slowly realised that the real problem wasn't my chair. Or my desk. Or even my posture.
The real problem was that I had forgotten how to stop.
I had become so accustomed to operating under pressure that tension felt normal. Productivity felt normal. Availability felt normal. Even stress felt normal.
Until the day Slack notifications started making me anxious before I had even read them.
That's when I understood that wellbeing isn't a destination. It's not a yoga class. It's not a supplement. It's not an ergonomic chair.
It's a continuous process of noticing. Experimenting. Adjusting. Letting go. Trying again.
Because wellbeing isn't about eliminating stress. It's about creating enough space for everything we carry. And learning that not everything needs to be carried at the same time.