Yami Gautam opens up about her health struggles and being immunocompromised

Yami Gautam is one of Bollywood’s most jaw dropping beauties however, the past year for her has been riddled with health issues following a neck injury and dengue. As a result of that she has invested in working tirelessly to redevelop her immune system.

With the world just now scrambling to strengthen their immune systems owing to the COVID-19 pandemic, Yami has been working at that chore for a number of months, and due to her desperation she was forced to resort to employing drastic measures at one point in time.

She opened up about her experiences during an interview with Mumbai Mirror. During the course of the conversation, Yami was quoted saying, “To look leaner and adhere to the socially-constructed notion that physical attractiveness in a woman is one of her most important assets, I foolishly started cutting down on food and completely stopped eating some much-needed carbs. Also, to ‘appear fit’ during a hectic shoot schedule, followed by film promotions and ad shoots, I’d wake up at 5 am, do yoga from 5:30 am to 7 am, then leave for a 12-13-hour shoot day. When I returned, I’d hit the gym for an hour, all this while being in immense pain. I barely got four hours of sleep,” she recalls.

Yami admitted that rather than exercise, what her body needed most was time to heal at that time. With a much wiser understanding of her own body now, the star admitted that she still wakes up early for yoga practice but makes sure to listen to the demands of her body first and foremost.

To make her experience more magical and zen, “I like to create an ambience first with tealight candles and soothing music. I do a 45-minute combination of Ashtanga and Hatha yoga, along with suryanamaskars.”

With the world being forced to self-isolate and reflect, Yami hopes that people begin to look beyond the veil of social media influenced vanity. For “as actors, we have a certain responsibility to look good and appear presentable at all times. Instagram is full of picture-perfect bodies. But we are humans and women too. Our appearance depends on our menstrual cycle. Some days, we look bloated and that’s normal.”