Could you tell me a time you had to be active?

I wanted to write about how sports affect my mood, it's something I had never thought about before this year. The lockdown hit me harder than I thought, even after everything opened up I never realised how it had affected me. It was only once the second lockdown was announced that I realised.
I have never had a reason to put a link between sports and my mood, there has never been a time in my life that I wasn't apart of a sporting team of some kind, I am very fortunate.

When the lockdown was called I noticed that I wasn't as happy and as motivated, I was struggling, but everyone was! I had just moved home from uni, I was finishing my degree from home and I wasn't able to see any of my friends and I made that link, rather than the link between my mood and not taking part in sports. I finished my degree and I was still in a slump, I decided to try running to see if that would help, and it did. Things started to open up and I realised after an evening of kayaking on the Thames how much I'd relied on being active before lockdown, but everything had opened up and again I didn't have a reason to think about it, I was in a good way again and was allowed to be paddling and swimming and socialising. I had a very active summer and autumn, I was paddling more than often, swimming pretty much every day and had pole & hoop weekly.

The second lockdown was called and I realised there was a chance all of that would be taken away, and then it hit me how scared I was to be losing it all, and to be unable to do those things, switch off, refresh my mind and my goals.

I find so much strength and importance from being active and taking part in sports I love so much. My sports gives me something to aim for and a reason to get outside and be in fresh air, and I realise now how much all of this benefits me and my mental health.