Seven Stress-Busters

Continuing with yesterday’s theme of coping mechanisms, here are seven (non-food-based!) things to do to help reduce stress:

 

1.     Breathe.  I wrote about this yesterday, but focusing in on the breath is a good way to relax the body and mind.  Even five deep breaths can make a significant difference.

2.     Breathe hard.  I am a big fan of cardio for reducing stress.  It burns calories, improves mood, uses up nervous energy, and, for bonus points, it’s good for us!

3.     Breathe slow.  Restorative yoga is a gentler way to calm the body and mind if cardio seems like too much work.

4.     Breathe loud.  All right, I mean snore.  Getting enough sleep is crucial to health.  Tired people are stressed people.  Naps are good for you.

5.     Blow bubbles.  By which I mean, put the body in water.  Maybe it’s a pool, maybe it’s a spa, maybe it’s the bathtub, but the gentle embrace of water is great for absorbing our tension.

6.     Drink some water.  It’s good on the inside, too!  Hydrated people are nicer and have more energy to cope with whatever comes along.

7.     Hug people.  Human contact is as much a need as food.  Hugging (vaccinated) people is also a Good Deed—they get to feel good, too!

 

Go play.

Uncle Joe Says to Breathe

We all have our go-to coping mechanisms for when times get tough.  After the last year or so of pandemic fun and games, I’m sure we’ve all had to get creative with our strategies.  Today, I want to remind us all about one of the simplest:  breathing.

 

Unless we are dead (do zombies read?), we are breathing right now.  It happens without conscious thought.  However, in times of stress, some of us hold our breaths and others of us breathe a lot faster.  Neither one is a particularly good idea.  Fortunately, (unless the stressor is zombie attack) we have brains that can choose to regulate our breath on purpose.

 

The easiest way to do that is to focus on taking a long, slow inhale, and then a long, slow exhale.  We can repeat until we feel calmer.

 

What makes breath regulation even easier in stressful moments is practicing it when things aren’t so stressful.  This is one of the beautiful things about Pilates.  When we move in Pilates, we sync our motions with our breath.  Additionally, the mobility and flexibility we gain by doing Pilates enable our bodies to breathe more efficiently.

 

Short version:  in, out, repeat.

Short Circuit (not that kind...)

There are lots of reasons to like circuit training, but the one that seems really compelling to me right now is that it doesn’t require a long attention span.  Done right, there is no time to get bored and in half an hour to 45 minutes, both cardio and weight training are taken care of.  And the next time, the workout can be completely different!

 

So what is this done right I’m talking about?

 

A good circuit includes cardio, upper body, lower body, and abdominal exercises.  Many times, the cardio exercises do double-duty as whole body exercises.  Ideally, after the warm up, we get our heart rate up a couple of times during the circuit and then have a rest period at the end of a round, or we have mini-rests after a few exercises and a longer rest at the end.

 

A short circuit might be six exercises, two cardio or whole body, one or two upper body, one or two lower body, and one ab exercise.  A workout would be three or four cycles through the circuit, depending on time and energy.  Here’s a sample:

 

30 clean and presses (cardio/whole body)

30 squats (lower body)

20 bench press (upper body)

30 mountain climbers (cardio)

20 lunges (lower body)

10 pretty princesses (abs)

 

Notice that the exercises are distributed rather than bunched; cardio does not follow cardio and lower body does not follow lower body.  Also notice that the abs, which involve lying down, happen at the end just before the rest.

 

Try making your own!

Monday Workout: Renegade!

This week we continue to use our core to address the challenges of stability while we work out.  We’re doing extra renegade rows this week!  Three rounds.

 

mountain climbers	30
renegade rows	20
pushups	10
step ups or high knees	30
deadlift or 1 leg deadlift	20
lateral raises	10
clean and press	30
squats	20
pretty princesses	10

 

Try Five!

 

Following up on yesterday’s post, here are five things to try for fall:

 

1.     Adding intervals to cardio.  It’s nice to get into the endurance cardio groove, but our bodies like the occasional burst of speed.  We will improve our cardio fitness faster and burn more calories.  Just go as hard/fast as possible for a minute every once in a while during the workout and then recover for a bit at the usual pace.

2.     Lifting heavy.  Choose one upper body exercise and one lower body exercise.  After warming up, alternate sets of each, increasing the weight each time until form deteriorates or the lift is impossible.  I like bench press/rows or deadlifts/bench press.

3.     Circuit training.  This is one form of functional fitness.  We cycle through a series of weight exercises plus a few cardio ones thrown in to keep our heart rate up.  It definitely busts boredom.

4.     Go outside.  It’s finally cool enough!  Trade the treadmill for the park or the spin bike for the real one!

5.     Stretch.  Almost no one I know stretches often enough.  How about we change that for fall?  It’s good for us, feels good, and doesn’t take long.

 

Go play.

Fall Forward!

I have no idea what the weather will be like when this actually posts, but right now it is raining.  What a welcome sound!  The season is changing!

 

I love fall.  Fall is the time of new beginnings, sharpened pencils, cooler temperatures, and renewed energy.  It’s also a great time to start a new habit; all the kids are doing it!

 

May I suggest taking a look at what we’re doing for fitness?  If we’ve been doing the same thing for months and months, our bodies are bored with it and our brains are likely bored, too.  This might be the time to change heavy lifting for functional fitness, or vice versa.  Maybe it’s time to throw in a little Pilates, or to try a different kind of yoga.

 

If we haven’t been exercising at all, this is still a good time to start.  I always recommend that folks start with cardio because it is a great foundation for everything else and it has such mood-boosting power.  Begin small and work up to 30 minutes on most days of the week.

 

We can do this!

Banish the Hobgoblin!

Crazy Uncle Ralph (Waldo Emerson) said that a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds.  My mind appears to be hobgoblin-free, because I try not to be too foolish or too consistent.  Why am I thinking about this?  I was thinking about workout plateaus and how to deal with them.

 

Workout plateaus, those times when we don’t seem to be making progress, can be incredibly frustrating.  We look resentfully at the numbers on the weights, which are not going up, or the numbers on the run time, which are not going down, or the numbers on the scale, which seem to be frozen entirely.  So how do we break out?

 

It depends.

 

Sometimes we hit a plateau because we are not working as hard as we think we are.  We’ve actually been coasting a bit on the cardio, or skipping workouts here and there.  It’s also possible that we aren’t eating as well as we think we are.  This is where it is good to renew our commitment to tracking, because that will reveal what is really going on.  Then we can adjust as needed.

 

Other times, we are hitting the plateau because we have been overtraining.  As hard as it is when we are really motivated to DO things, we need to choose to rest a bit at that point.  Easing off gives our systems time to catch up with all the good work we’re doing.

 

We have to check in with ourselves and gently inquire what is going on.  If we are slacking off, we can nudge ourselves back into the work and if we’re overtired, we can treat ourselves with love and take a nap.