Many people assume workouts as an activity that wears you out. Well, that is a wrong perception and, it is the opposite. There are countless exercises that you can do for optimizing your body and mind.
Using the holistic exercising regime, you can work on your body’s stability and strength. Also, it would help to enhance the physical and mental wellbeing of yours. In current scenario, it is necessary to maintain equilibrium among your mental and physical health.
It is now that people are realizing the necessity and importance of both these aspects and any one of them cannot be compromised. The best way for striking the balance among the two would be going with a holistic exercising regime that improves the awareness of your body and mind.
What Are the Benefits of Exercising?
Many of us are aware of the benefits of regular exercising. That is why most of us are doing it regularly and even some of them follow it as a strict aspect of their lives.
One thing you must
keep in mind is that the greatest benefit of exercising is based on the weight management and toning up. With the diet, exercise would be the major component for increasing the metabolism and even losing weight. However, there are many great advantages of exercise like holistic exercise that helps us to slim down to a good extend.
Basic Physical Benefits of Exercising
The following are the five major physical benefits of holistic exercises –
Heart Health
Physical activity is often associated with having a healthy heart. Even there are many studies that clearly show that people that exercise regularly reduces the risk of suffering from cardiovascular issues like the total cholesterol, reduced LDL (bad), and increased HDL (good) cholesterol.
Stronger Bones and Healthy Joints
Exercising would help to reduce the age-related losses related to the bone density, muscle mass and joint flexibility and lubrication. Keep in mind that the weight-bearing activities can lead to the formation of new bone tissues and even muscles. These would help to push and tug against the bones and even help to strengthen the bones and muscles.
If you are suffering from joint issues, then you can go ahead with those exercises that can help with the osteoarthritis issues.
Immune Function
A regular exercise would help to improve the immune system. That means you would be less likely going to catch cold as and when your physical activity is a lot. There are certain studies that even suggest that sometimes these exercises like the holistic ones would reduce the inflammation and make improvements in the psychological stress. Even they can help to enhance the immune surveillance. For some people, such exercises help in increasing the white blood cells.
Energy Levels
As an when you are feeling lethargic, the first major instinct would be to lie-down and grab a cup of coffee. However, evidence show that you can do the opposite and it would boost the energy levels of yours. There have been scenarios where active adults have reported of feeling less fatigue and low energy levels compared to their sedentary peers.
Skin Health
Exercise would help one to secure their skin from damages that are caused by the oxidative stress. Of course, physical activity would boost the flow of the blood. It can even help to stimulate the response of the body to oxidative stress, and these include the production of the protective antioxidants.
Emotional and Mental Benefits of Exercising
Stress Relief
Exercise would be hugely beneficial on your anxiety and stress levels. That would make you feel more relaxed and calmer. That can be hugely due to reduced cortisol and adrenaline. Also, it would increase the norepinephrine and serotonin that moderates the response of the brain to any kind of stress. Sometimes the physical activity would be a great way to make you forget about the stress of the day. Well, that would act like a certain kind of meditation. Well, either way, there are various ways to find the best and optimal means of mixture of activity, frequency, intensity, and duration of exercise that you can use for relieving stress.
Improving Mood
Physical activity helps to improve one’s mood and even the feeling of being happy. Holistic exercise can help in triggering the endorphins. These are the brain’s feeling good neurotransmitters.
Endorphins can easily boost one’s mood and even help in relaxing. Have you ever heard about the ‘runner’s high”? Here the expression would mean the feeling that you would be getting when your brain releases the endorphins that is stimulated through exercising.
Focus and Clear Thinking
Sometimes you would be going through phase where you are losing focus. Well, it would be getting to a situation where you are forgetful. That gives you another reason to exercise regularly.
When you are doing physical activity, it delivers oxygen to your brain and other related tissues. 30-40 minutes of holistic exercise of moderate level around five days a week is the best one. It can release the brain chemicals that help in memory improvement, mental concentration, and focus.
Promoting Self-Esteem
Physical activities have positive effects on one’s confidence and self-esteem. These are commonly related to the self-perceptions of attractiveness, strength, and physical conditions.
For maximizing the self-esteem benefits, you need to set goals for your exercise plan and try to celebrate when you reach them.
Better Sleep
Many research shows that there is a huge link among regular exercise and improved sleep. The participants in these surveys show that there is a consistency that shows the physical activity is one of the major necessary factors that allows one to fall asleep and even enhances the quality of the sleep.
Harnessing the Power of Mind-Body Connection
The mind-body connection would mean that you can easily be able to learn in using the thoughts. These can positively influence some of the physical responses of one’s body, and lead to reducing stress. When you recall the time that you were grateful, happy, and calm, your mind and body would immediately relax.
Holistic Exercise Are Great for Your Body and Mind
There are various kinds of holistic exercises that you can do for empowering your mind and body. When you are doing the holistic exercise, you get the advantage of –
- Decreasing pain
- Decreasing anxiety
- Enhancing sleep
- Decreasing the usage of medication for the post-surgical pain
- Reduction of the recovery time and shortening the hospital stays
- Strengthening immune system and enhancing the ability for healing
- Increasing sense of well-being and control
Holistic Exercise Lead To Relaxation
The aim of calming and relaxation holistic exercises is to assist in changing the way you comprehend a situation and react to it. This would assist you to feel more in control, more confident or secure, and to activate healing processes within the body.
When you do holistic exercise, you become aware of any tension, anxiety, change in breathing, or symptoms that you recognize as being caused or worsened by stress. 15 minutes of daily practice of such exercises would help “quiet” your mind and help your body become more relaxed, you can then call upon this ability with a shorter relaxation exercise at a stressful time.
Holistic Exercise Even Contain Breathing Ones
Make sure to be aware of your current breathing pattern. Try to learn how to change your breathing rate from fast, shallow chest breathing to slow, abdominal breathing.
Here the focus lies on your breathing while you are placing one hand on your chest and the other one over your navel. Just imagine of a balloon sitting on your abdomen.
When you do a slow, deep breath, try to focus on inflating the balloon in your abdomen. Here you will see that your abdomen raises a lot more compared to what your chest does. As you exhale, allow your abdomen to fall naturally.
The major goal here is to learn how to breathe at six breaths a minute, about three or four seconds inhaling and six- or seven-seconds exhaling. Once you have the slow, deep breathing accomplished, do not worry about counting and imagine breathing out any tension in the body or thoughts that get in the way of comfort and relaxation.
If it helps, you can imagine a spot located on your abdomen, just below your navel. Breathe into and through that spot, filling your abdomen with air, allowing it to expand. Imagine the air filling you inside from your abdomen, and then let it out, like deflating a balloon. With every long, slow breath out, you should feel more relaxed.
Mind Relaxation Exercises Are a Part of Your Holistic Exercises
Close your eyes and breathe normally from your nose. When you exhale, try to say silently to yourself the word “one,” or any other short word such as “peaceful. Try to continue the mind relaxation exercise for 10 minutes. If your mind wanders, gently remind yourself to think about your breathing and your chosen word or phrase. Allow your breathing to become slow and steady.
Holistic Exercises to Do
Yoga
Yoga is a great exercise, and it involves one standing, sitting and being in the reclined posture along with the required mediation and breathing method. In the yoga exercise, there are hundreds of postures and even styles that you can follow, from the super-gentle kind of restorative yoga-based pose to the challenging ones like the ashtanga and hot yoga. These are the ones that would emphasize the endurance and strength.
Most of them would contain holding the series of the still postures and even in certain styles like the practitioners’ flow from pose to pose and the vinyasa.
Tai Chi
In case of Tai Chi, it combines deep breathing that is followed by slow-flowing and gentle posture, ones that can relax the mind and strengthen and even stretching the ligaments and muscles. Like yoga, there are many kinds of styles that could be practiced when you are standing, walking, and even sitting.
A handful of studies of tai chi that involve people with arthritis show a host of benefits. These include increased range of motion, improved muscle strength, flexibility, balance, cardiovascular fitness, and quality of life as well as reduced pain, stress, inflammatory markers, and disease activity.
Tai chi may help people with arthritis by “decreasing stress and causing the release of endorphins (‘feel good’ hormones that reduce pain and boost feelings of euphoria) that decrease perceptions of pain and create a sense of well-being.
Qigong
Qigong originated about 2,000 years ago in China, where it is prescribed by physicians to ease the symptoms of arthritis, high blood pressure, and insomnia. Its many styles integrate breathing exercises, meditation, visualization, and gentle body movements.
Qigong exercises are one of the safest even for those who are frail or confined to bed with appropriate modifications. They reduce fatigue and heighten energy, and are non-strenuous, self-paced and designed to protect internal organs and joints.
The major benefit of the consistent practice of qigong is pain reduction. Another is its positive effect on reducing stress, depression, anxiety, and low personal confidence. Additional observed benefits in people with various forms of arthritis are improved immune system health, sleep quality, balance and agility and interest in life. These are all the possible factors that can impact pain positively.
Regularly practicing qigong enhances posture, joint alignment, bone health, endurance, strength, and walking ability.
Holistic Exercises Are Great for Your Body
When you are doing holistic exercise, your body becomes more flexible. Also, these exercises are great for your mind. It makes your mind more peaceful as well as energetic.
Studies show that holistic exercises are called as mind-exercises. They can make your mind sharper. Many of the holistic exercises like yoga have been practiced by various people for getting a calm and peaceful life. Not only they make you feel relaxed, but they even help you to concentrate better.
