Amanda Griffin Jacob on why prioritizing your health is not selfish

“Stepping into that yoga path led me to so many other things on my health journey that I wasn’t even cognizant of,” shares former model, host, and now health and human rights advocate Amanda Griffin Jacob

“I know it’s difficult,” Amanda Griffin Jacob says. “I also struggle.”

The former model, host, author, human rights advocate, and now yogi and co-founder of Vida Yoga bears an image of grace, a contrast from her admission that she, too, has days when she struggles with taking care of her health. But as her eyes twinkle as she talks about her passion for her practice, you get a sense that her journey has led to a lot of personal transformation, inspiration, and wisdom.

While she leads a community of like-minded, holistic health enthusiasts through Vida Yoga, she recognizes the differences in each one’s path to health. “I’m not saying it’s easy,” she says, especially at the beginning. “But what’s the price? It’s going to be your health, and you don’t want that. You have to take care of yourself in order to take care of others.”

Kickstarting the journey to wellness

Jacob’s yoga journey has been a well-documented one. She has often shared how she got into it during the preparations for her wedding 17 years ago. “I wanted to tone up for the wedding. I had no idea about anything, I just heard that [Bikram yoga] was good cardio, that it helps you burn a lot of calories,” she says.

“From the moment I took my first class, I was hooked.”

She describes the effect of hot yoga as a feeling of bliss—not just about working your body but also exercising the mental state, helping her stay grounded and regulated. “It helps clear your mind, and I was at the right point in my life journey where I wanted to be open to more.”

“Stepping into that yoga path led me to so many other things on my health journey that I wasn’t even cognizant of,” she adds. But while she advocates for a life where health is a top priority, she also often acknowledges that not everyone has the same privilege, inclination, or capacity. “I don’t expect people to do [the same things I do]—I’m a non-drinking, plant-based yogi who goes [to yoga] six times a week. I’m not saying that people should be like that. It’s just those little steps, and once you start feeling better, it just falls into place.”

“Everyone has their own unique journey,” she says. “We (Vida Yoga) just want to be there to help kickstart it.”

Vida Yoga specializes in various forms of hot yoga, offering classes like hot 26, hot vinyasa, and even heated HIIT Pilates. They also hold warm and non-hot (regular) yoga classes as well as sound healing, kundalini, and even breathwork.

They emphasize an approach to wellness that goes “beyond the mat,” encompassing nutrition and mental wellness, too.

Jacob’s personal journey into caring for her body also extends beyond the mat. She has been vegetarian for more than 15 years now, and she’s raised her children as vegetarians. Her husband also recently shifted to vegetarianism.

“I had always had this book from PETA, which was called ‘101 Reasons I’m Vegetarian.’ I bought that book, but it was sitting on my shelf for two years,” Jacob says. 

It was when she joined her husband David for a work conference in Cebu that she finally took the book out of the shelf. “I knew he was going to be working a lot, so I’m like, ‘I need a book, right?’ And then it just glinted. You know, you see sunlight glint off the title. And I was like, ‘why not?’ So I grabbed it and started reading it on that trip.

“I read it, and within the first day, I was like, ‘my god!’ It went through the whole spectrum: slaughterhouses, hormones, mercury in the sea, the fishing practices. When I was reading, I only got, literally I think I was in the third chapter, and I was like, ‘I’m not going to eat meat anymore. I don’t think I’m going to eat meat again,’” Jacob says, recounting the moment that marked her shift to vegetarianism. 

“The next night, when we were at dinner, I was looking at the menu and everything was running through my head. I can’t have that, I don’t want to have that. That was it. From that moment on, I never had meat again.”

Making time

Despite being a self-professed introvert, Jacob finds herself constantly surrounded by a flurry of energy. From her brood of four children to her public career, to the community Vida Wellness is striving to build, Jacob admits she absorbs a lot of energy, and thus needs her alone time to recharge.

Yoga and meditation are her go-to methods of self-care, she says, but she admits that sometimes, it’s not a consistent practice. “I have four kids, so it’s not [easy]. I have to carve out pockets of time where I’m able to do this. Yoga for me is great, because I do it when they all go to school,” she says. “I can do a class in the morning and then have the rest of the day to work, and then be there when they come home.”

Grounding in nature is another way Jacob enjoys recharging and calming herself. Grounding, also called earthing, is a therapeutic technique to reconnect and realign your energy by immersing in nature. Jacob practices this by walking barefoot in her garden.

While more research is needed to support the benefits of grounding (though the few studies that do exist note effects on improving mood and reducing physical pain or fatigue), other nature-centric therapies like forest bathing have also been studied to have significant health benefits, like lowering blood pressure and reducing levels of harmful hormones, while also reducing symptoms of mental health concerns like anxiety, stress, depression, and anger.

“I’ve been through stages where my bucket (what she calls her capacity or energy) just has a little in it. I was in deficit a lot, and that really wreaked havoc on my mental well-being,” she says. “You have to be cognizant of all that because as women—working women who are mothers, or even those who don’t have kids—our tendency is to take care of everyone else before ourselves. Especially Filipinas. It’s part of the culture, and it’s a very heavy load to carry.” 

Hence the importance of carving out time for yourself. “I don’t think you’re being selfish,” Jacob says of deciding to prioritize your health. “But at the same time, I try not to do it when my kids are at home, you know, I’m making sure that I’m prioritizing the time that I can to do those things.”

Taking care of your health doesn’t always mean having to go to a gym or studio, she adds. “You can also do workouts in your home. It’s definitely doable for everyone. For me, working out, being active, [engaging in] movement has always helped me emotionally and mentally. They all go hand in hand. You can’t really separate any of them.”

What matters, Jacob says, is recognizing your limitations. “It’s not a bad thing. You need to be smart about your health and your time. [Because if you don’t,] you’ll get sick, depressed, and resentful. They add up, and you don’t realize it. It’s all a domino effect.” 

In the same way she carves out time for herself, she similarly dedicates time to each of her children. A mother of four, Jacob has found that the best way to better connect and bond with her kids is to spend time with them individually.

“I love taking them out individually, because [when they’re all together] they compete for my attention. The chaos starts ensuing, and I get all flustered,” she shares. “It’s very nice to be able to talk one on one with them and really find out what’s happening in their life, their thoughts, their fears, their aspirations. It’s hard to do that when it’s a group of them; each kid is different.”

“When you have a lot of kids, you want to make sure that they don’t feel neglected. It’s hard because there’s so much going on, and I work. So that connection is important to foster,” Jacob says. “They’re only young once. We only have them for a very short time.”

Showing up for yourself

There’s something reassuring about hearing the multi-hyphenate admit that consistency in practice will always be challenging. “Life is life,” Jacob says. “You have different things to do, things come up. But don’t give up.”

“If you’re going three times in a row and then don’t go for a week, you have to get back on the horse, so to speak. No one else can do it for you but you,” she adds. 

She emphasizes finding one’s why—the reason you want to do an activity, be it yoga, or eating better, or even just walking. “I love yoga so much, it was never a chore. But I knew it was going to be tough. Sometimes I’d be like, ‘Oh, I really don’t want to go,’ but I know I’m going to feel better after. So it’s that. Find your passion, that’ll make it easier. It doesn’t have to be some crazy thing—[it can be just] walking, get your steps in.”

“It’s just that snowball effect of needing to start. Put that one foot forward. And don’t give up even if you have setbacks. Keep showing up for yourself, which I know is hard to do a lot of the time.

“I totally understand when people say, ‘I don’t have time to work out or to take care of myself because I have to work, I have kids, it’s too expensive.’ I understand. It’s not easy, but it’ll be worth it. You know, you don’t want to get sick and have regrets.

But when the off-days do happen—and it does happen, even for Jacob—she reminds us of the importance of being kind to ourselves. 

“You have to give yourself grace,” she says, whether it’s in your wellness journey, raising kids, or pursuing your passions. There’s a reason why many of these passions are called a “practice” after all, calling us to keep showing up and set the motion forward.

Photos by JT Fernandez
Video by Mikey Yabut and Claire Salonga
Art direction/assisted by Angela Chen
Makeup by Angel Manhilot
Hair by Mary Jane Nunez