By longtrekhome

Prevention Magazine has many short articles that will help anyone with tips about health, fitness, food/nutrition, weight loss, beauty, and home/family. Today’s article is entitled “Workouts for Every Mood”. The article cites information from Dr. Jack Raglin of Indiana University. He suggests that often people skip workouts because they don’t have the strength to switch gears mentally, so he suggests gearing your workout to your mood. I like this approach as it is a “if you can’t lick them, join them” mentality.

1) When you are angry—the best diversion is not the physically challenging in an effort to “work out” the stress but rather to create a workout that challenges you mentally. Learning new moves will help you to switch gears and use your brain for fun instead of staying fixated on your anger. I also use the mental picture when someone is in anger as having a foot on the gas and one on the brake. I believe it is rather pointless to hold on to negative emotion.

2) If you have the blues—Dr. Raglin states that even mind exercise will improve your mood like maybe walking or working in your garden. I like that he refers to this activity as mental recreation and not exercise.

3) If you are feeling bored—He recommends being around people who are engaged in an activity such as walking group or playing tennis, racquetball, golf, etc. One of my favorite benefits of going to the gym is being with others doing what I am doing.

4) When you are feeling drained—do a repetitive activity such as the treadmill. Do the activities that will calm and soothe you. Afterward, soaking in a warm tub will help to restore your energy.

5) When you are happy—don’t celebrate by skipping your workout. A workout can add to your good feelings as well as tune your body and emotions by adding new challenges to your workout.

Some other links to help you get started are:

Minimalist Fitness: How to Get in Lean Shape With Little or No Equipment

5 Easy Ways to Fit Exercise Into Your Busy Schedule

Push Yourself to a Healthy Lifestyle With Web Communities, Tools

Staying Active on Vacation:  Here’s How You Do It

Too Tired to Succeed?

Double your pleasure by DMoutray

Use an exercise notebook to list the results of the following tests throughout your exercise program. One that we recommend is The Ultimate Workout Log by Suzanne Schlosberg.

The tests are:

• Determining your resting heart rate
• Your target heart rate zone
• Your working heart rate
• Total body weight
• Dress, pant, and shirt sizes
• Body fat measurements
• Push yourself up
• Abdominal curls
• Stretching to the ceiling
• Determining your cardiovascular fitness
• Taking your measurements

In the book listed above, the recommendations for your program include evaluating how much time you spend on the couch. If you spend more time there than being active, the deconditioned workout routine is recommended.

For the deconditioned workout routine and for the conditioned workout routine, use the following steps:

1) Select your favorite exercises,

2) Determine how many sets and repetitions you want,

3) Determine how much weight for dumbbell you will use,

4) Cardiovascular exercise—your goal should be to reach

your target heart rate zone.

The tips they list for exercise are: squeeze something, hang loose, try aerobic exercise, take a walk, get into the swim of relaxation, don’t let stress give you a pain in the neck, learn and maintain good, antistress posture, work your jaw, and exercise on the job.

New links for using food and/or exercise journal:

Food and Meal Journal from Green Chair Press

Free diet and weight loss journal

Memory minder journals

Beginning exercise? Use a journal

PDF file for food journal exercise (7 pages)

“Hatha yoga is a meditation program that includes exercises to help improve flexibility and breathing, decrease stress, and maintain health. Yoga has been practiced for thousands of years in India and is based on the idea that the mind and body are one. It is thought that yoga improves health by improving how you see the world, which calms the spirit and decreases stress.”

“Two basic components of Hatha yoga are proper breathing and exercises, called postures, that stretch the body. Postures are done while standing, lying down, sitting in a chair, or in a headstand position. While practicing a posture, a person does breathing exercises to help relax muscles, maintain the posture, and focus the mind.”

“Hatha is one of many types of yoga. While each type focuses on different aspects of yoga, all share the same goal, which is not only improved physical and mental health, but achievement of “oneness” with a higher being, the self, or some form of higher awareness.”

“What is yoga used for?”

“Most people who try yoga for meditation find that it increases flexibility and reduces stress. Several studies have shown that yoga helps lower blood pressure and improves a person’s sense of well-being. Studies have also shown that yoga can help people who have asthma learn to breathe more easily. If you suffer from a long-term (chronic) medical condition, you can often combine yoga and conventional medical treatment.”

“Is yoga safe?”

“Yoga is considered safe.”

“Always tell your health professional if you are using an alternative therapy or if you are thinking about combining an alternative therapy with your conventional medical treatment. It may not be safe to forgo your conventional medical treatment and rely only on an alternative therapy.”

“Like any physical activity, yoga can cause muscle strains or sprains. Gentle stretching before a yoga session can help prevent injuries.”

The author for the above information is Paul Lehnert.

Yoga requires very little room to practice-just room for your body on the floor. You may choose to use a yoga mat. A site that has great variety in yoga mats and meditation products, matsmatsmats, also has a catalog that you can download.

A short glossary of the basic yoga poses, abc-of-yoga, will help you to get started with the basic poses. This extensive site may be all that is needed for your yoga education. It gives information about yoga and meditation, health, exercise, postures, equipment, and tools. It also has a members site and a links directory.

One of the best sections on this site is under “yoga exercises and postures” as it lists the yoga exercises under these sections;(1) warm-up poses, (2) standing poses, (3) seated poses, (4) twist yoga poses, (5) supine poses, (6) inverted postures and balance poses, (7) backbends, and (8) finishing poses. I especially like their warning that yoga is not a competition but a way to learn to relax.

Some of the best yoga products are for sale at Gaiam which is a lifestyle company with ideas and products for mind-body fitness, solar living, apparel, home and outdoors, wellness, and DVDs (and audio and books).

The Yoga Site has a directory of yoga retreats across the US, Canada, Central/South America and the Caribbean, Europe, and Australia.

Wai Lana has weekly asanas (exercises) with a video to learn that week’s pose. Flickr has many pages of yoga poses.

My favorite yoga CDs are: (1) Sara Ivanhoe’s 20 minute yoga makeover (ISBN 1-59443-546-4) and (2) You Can Do! Yoga (ISBN 0-7662-1904-6).

Walking–30 minutes daily

Monday–20 minutes endurance exercise

Tuesday–10 minutes strength training

Wednesday–20 minutes endurance exercise

Thursday–10 minute strength training

Friday–20 minutes endurance exercise

Saturday–add 30 minutes walking–do AM and PM