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Make sure you have a rest day: Some people think that in order to get into shape you should work out seven days a week. If you are working out properly, then you need to have at least one rest day, if not two. These periods are more important than the training because they let your body repair and recover, prevent injury and allow you to keep moving forward.
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Don’t get hung up on fitness trackers: Wearable technology is becoming increasingly popular and I think it has its place because it can be a great way to figure out your limits and track progress, whether weekly, monthly or even yearly. However, I think the best way to get results is to listen to your body and pay attention to what it needs. Daily tracking of weight, progress and strength can quickly become demotivating and stressful.
Top reasons why yoga is healing
The health benefits of yoga are vast and studies continue to show that there are consistent rewards in almost every area of our health and well-being. Here are just a few ways in which it can be healing.
Boosts immunity
Yoga is one of the most effective and time-tested natural immunity boosters. It can help to stimulate the four main physiological systems that are linked to the immune system: the digestive, circulatory, endocrine and nervous systems. Poses that affect at least one of these four systems can help bolster immune function.
Increases blood flow
Like other forms of exercise, yoga gets the blood flowing around your body, improving circulation by transporting more oxygen to your cells, so they function better.
Relaxes your nervous system
Yoga makes you concentrate on the here and now, relaxing both the mind and body. It shifts the balance from the sympathetic nervous system, otherwise known as the fight-or-flight response, to the parasympathetic nervous system. This part of the nervous system slows our heart and breathing rates and is both restorative and calming.
Helps you sleep deeper
Studies suggest that regular yoga practice leads to better sleep and can help with insomnia. Yoga breathing techniques can also help you to relax and switch off.
IF YOU SUFFER FROM MIGRAINES, BACKACHE, ARTHRITIS OR OTHER CHRONIC PAIN CONDITIONS, COUNTLESS STUDIES HAVE SHOWN THAT YOGA CAN BE VERY EFFECTIVE AT REDUCING PAIN
Encourages self-care
Rather than being a passive recipient of care (in the case of conventional medicine), yoga provides you with the tools to make a difference. This gives you the power to effect change; seeing improvements in your health and tuning into the positive changes in your body creates hope and optimism.
Improves self-esteem
Could your self-confidence do with a boost? Practising yoga allows the mind to relax and refocus, so you are less likely to engage in impulsive and unproductive behaviours. One Australian study showed that after a 12-week yoga programme, women who struggled with binge-eating reported improved body image and higher self-esteem.
Releases tension
Do you notice your shoulders hunched over your computer or desk? Or your hands tight around the steering wheel as you drive to work? Unconscious habits can lead to muscle fatigue and chronic tension. Doing yoga can lead to a greater awareness of your body so you will learn how to release this tension.
Workouts to boost your brain
Our brains are capable of some pretty amazing things and are constantly changing in response to our habits and lifestyle. It’s not just our body that loses muscle over time, our brains can weaken, too. A healthy diet and regular exercise are important for brain health. In the same way that working out our bodies and using weights helps us to add lean muscle and retain muscle as we age, regular brain exercises can help increase our brain’s cognitive reserve. Experts call it ‘neurobic exercises’ – cross-training for the brain!
Challenge your memory
If you’re anything like me, you probably rely on your smartphone for most things. Training your memory is really easy and can be done on your daily commute: learn all the lyrics to a song in the car, or memorise the words to a poem on the Tube. Or make yourself do a task from memory, like brushing your teeth with your non-dominant hand or getting dressed in the dark.
Get lingo-happy
Language activities encourage our brains to understand, recognise and remember words. By practising language fluency your brain will be stimulated to remember old words and understand and recognise new words in context. A simple way to do this is to read outside your normal realm; rather than reading the sports section of a newspaper, read the business section, so you are exposed to new words. Learning a second language has also been proven to prevent dementia in later life.
Take a cooking class or learn to cook from scratch
Giving your brain a new experience that combines all the physical senses – taste, touch, smell, vision and hearing – can stimulate more connections between the brain areas, dramatically improving memory and making parts of the brain more resistant to ageing. A cooking class or cooking a meal from scratch is an ideal way to do this. Other examples of activities that stimulate all five senses include camping and gardening. Lance and I love to challenge each other with strange and new things all the time. Taking yourself out of your comfort zone can really awaken your senses!
Make time for friends
When you think of ways to boost your brain, hanging out with your friends probably isn’t the first thing that comes to mind. However, spending time with friends and making new ones will expose you to more facts, information and ideas. Experts say that this develops our ability to focus, learn and analyse details. Practise actively listening to what other people say to expose yourself to as much new information as possible (talking to someone new on Instagram doesn’t count!).
Get creative
Craft hobbies and playing board games focus the brain in the same way as meditation does. One recent study at Otago University in New Zealand showed that ‘purposeful’ activities, like performing music, doing arts and crafts or cooking new recipes leads to an ‘upward spiral’ of improved health and creativity. For example, everyone has photos on their mobile phone but what about a good old-style scrapbook? Every year I make a scrapbook of everything that has happened that year for Lance as a Christmas present. I keep tickets, passes and add photos and get creative.
THE BRAIN USES MORE ENERGY THAN ANY OTHER HUMAN ORGAN, ACCOUNTING FOR 20 PER CENT OF OUR DAILY CALORIE INTAKE
3 workouts to energise & revitalise the body & mind
These workouts are a mixture of yoga and Pilates movements and stretches that are designed to provide you with the perfect way to sync your body and mind, while at the same time giving you a workout to tone you up, using muscles you never knew you had!
We are going to target all the key muscle groups and energise and re-awaken them, so you use all of your muscles properly. I have designed these workouts to be done on alternate days, interspersed with more high-intensity cardio training of your choice, such as HIIT (high-intensity interval training), running, spinning or your normal gym training sessions, alongside one rest day. If you prefer to train very hard or are working towards a specific event, these exercises are a great way to start a session because they will activate all the smaller muscles you will need to work out most