Category Archives: Exercise
Matching Your Exercise to Your Mood
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
Essential Stretch: Gentle Movements for Stress Relief, Flexability and Overall Well-Being
Sunrise by FlyNutAA
Essential Stretch: Gentle Movements for Stress Relief, Flexability and Overall Well-Being
Michelle LeMay
ISBN 0-300-52893-8
Essential Stretch by Michelle LeMay with the ISBN 0-399-52893-8 is featured in this post. Michelle has spent years developing and teaching her stretch techniques. The table of contacts includes the basics, the blessings, the techniques (oscillations, breath, heart activation, meditation and centering), the stretches (full body, lower body and upper body), and five different routines depending on the user’s skill level.
The five routines are: (1) full body routine for getting started, (2) full body routine for the seasoned stretcher, (3) short and sweet routines, (4) daily stretches, and (5) mind your mind.
Her centering process includes several helpful techniques. Centering is the ability to “tune out” inner and external stress and get in touch with your quietness inside you. We each have this center but this technique needs to be strengthened in order to lower our stress level. Remember it is our reaction to stress that uses the most useless energy. We want to bombard our stressor. But the centering process helps to use our energy the only place that we can make a difference—on ourselves.
The techniques for centering that she includes are: (1) increase your self-awareness, (2) quiet your mind, (3) focus inward, and (4) create a positive shift. The positive shift uses clarity, letting go of burdens, self-love, peace, mind/body connection, and being happy statements to be included with your stretch.
Excerpt from the book:
“Essential Stretch is a simple movement technique. Anyone can do it—no matter what your age or fitness level—and everyone can benefit from it, even super-fit athletes and dancers. Unfortunately, when it comes to exercise programs, stretch has been placed on the back burner, or related to the category of exercise for the elderly. But research reveals that stretching is often the missing link in successful exercise programs, As you will see, it is becoming apparent that it may be the missing link in our lives.”
