I have officially gone beyond the boundaries of my experience. Not only am I locked in a hotel room in the middle of a pandemic, I have started jogging.

Yes. You heard me. Jogging.

This one is for @karinxxl and @revisesociology who know how loathe I am to even contemplate this ridiculous habit people seem to have. I'm the first to roll my eyes if someone suggested this insane sport. Like what the actual fuck. Whilst I'm not a big girl, I do have big norks, so even with a sports bra it's slightly to absolutely uncomfortable, and I just don't like everything jiggling the way it does. I'm not adverse to fitness. Hell, I've been walking 10 miles a day in the UK, I surf, and I do some pretty intense yoga. I don't mind a good sweat. But jogging?

However, after two panic attacks in this hotel room, where I'm forcibly quarantined under guard, and a lot of tears, I had to do something to move this cortisol through. Jet lag was having me wake up at 2 am and swallow a diazapem and melantonin to get through it, even though I was absolutely reluctant. The mental health nurse, at 3 am on Saturday morning, said I just have to do it to bring my heart rate down. I was so claustrophobic and no amount of yogic breathing was helping. Even yoga wasn't cutting it.

Our suite at the Novotel, well lit - trust me, it ain't well lit!

So on Sunday morning, at 5 am, with tears streaming down my face and in the darkness of this room, I picked up my noise cancelling headphones, threw on some Mali music (it's guitary bluesy African music that made me feel like I was jogging in the wide open light filled landscape of the Sahara, without the sand) and ran.

Desert music with Mark Lanegan from Screaming Trees

Twelve steps diagonally across the room. 10 steps width. I'd downloaded a step counter onto my phone (having long resisted fitbits - seriously? I need tech to tell me how fit I'm getting?) and with the music cranked, I cried for the first 2 kilometres, and then the magic happened - the cortisol started to shift, and I started feeling kinda *okay*. I settled into a rhythm - a kind of pathetic shuffle - where my thoughts started to slow down and things got kinda meditative. Was this why people ran?

It took me two hours to run about 8 kilometres. I have no idea what that means, but it felt pretty good. Had I found the solution to feeling like I was dying in my hotel room?

On the second day, Jamie joined me. That gets kinda weird, I tell you - like someone's chasing you in a room or you're meeting the same person on your travels every lap. Like a glitch in the Matrix. I have to admit the room's a little small for that.

Today things got even weirder. Trying to find some motivating running music was hard. I mean, I don't run, so what the hell do I choose to run to? I need something pretty upbeat. For some reason, Eminem came to mind. That's where things got really hysterical - it amped me up so much that I ended up dancing jogging, which made Jamie stare at me in absolute incredulity. What the hell was his wife on? Endorphins, I think.

I don't listen to Eminem and I don't jog. Crazy times.

So, knowing that about two people will read this post, I'm sharing me dancing in my hotel room. Yep. That's how bad things have got in here. Basically, it's me being a fool, so if you have a life to live, please don't watch it.

My son suggested CIVIC if I was going that crazy. I reckon @cmplxty might like this one. They're a Melbourne post punk garage band. Shades of the Stooges in there. Snarling low fi pub band music. Totally not what I've been listening to of late, but damn it helped me run faster and longer. Today I only got to 6 km because my legs were hurting, and I think I used up the extra energy dancing.

Damn it felt good to move - a wonderful natural medicine for my soul. For a while, I could forget that I was locked in a room. Flooded with endorphins, my brain felt better. A freezing cold shower - complete with screaming - brought my skin alive.

It sure beat a walk in the Melbourne drizzle. You can see me below fooling with the guards who are trying to make me go in and I'm begging for one more minute. They're there to make sure you don't jump or escape, doing parkour off the buildings (which I'm sure I can nail, given my excellent dance-jogging skills). It was taken by a girl on the 9th floor, who spends her days spying on the walkers below. That's the kinda crazy shit we're reduced to here.

But seriously, if you're feeling low, move your body. It helps. It really, really does.

This post was written in response to the Natural Medicine 'Move it' challenge, which you can find on the @naturalmedicine blog. We'd all love you to enter!