Ok everyone, here comes the final installment of the Good For You Series. What could possibly be the last essential thing we need to incorporate into our lives to help us feel balanced, centered, and whole? Well, exercise of course!
Ok, ok, I hears some groans already. So, if you don’t like to exercise, I get where you’re coming from. I felt that way for most of my life. If you want to read about how to turn this around, go to my post Learning to Love Exercise. It may help…
On the other hand, if you already love exercise, maybe you don’t even need to read this post. So what are we going to talk about? I want to expand our definition of exercise a little. There are a few pitfalls that I’m finding that I and others are falling into when we think about exercise.
The first pit we fall into when we think about exercise is around WHY we exercise. Fairly frequently, I will be talking to a patient about weight and they say, “Yeah, I really need to start exercising again.” Many people exercise because they want to lose weight. And I agree that exercise is a good thing for the body, in lots of ways. But in order to burn enough calories to actually lose weight, you have to be an elite athlete and be 18 years old! Don’t get me wrong, I think exercise is important, but alone it’s not the key to weight loss. Getting into a good exercise routine helps us to make better food choices and stick to our chosen eating plan. We do more things that help us take care of ourselves when we are exercising. But the benefits to exercise are far greater than losing a couple of pounds. Exercise strengthens our hearts, improves our sleep, helps our bowel function, keeps our bones strong and keeps our joints limber.
So what’s the real reason we exercise? Everyone wants to be healthy – no one would choose to be sick! So, we exercise for health. Did you know that the word “health” comes from the word “whole”? And isn’t that what we are striving for? To become whole? So what if instead of “doing my cardio”, or “working on my upper body”, we used our exercise as a way to encourage wholeness within ourselves? What might that look like in our lives?
Walking the beach…
Another trouble area we get into is thinking that only certain strenuous exercise is worthwhile. The “if I can’t run on the treadmill for at least 45 minutes, I might as well cash it in” mentality. Hardcore, sweaty, blood pumping exercise is great for your heart and lungs, helps tone your muscles and burn some energy. But other, less intense exercise counts too. There are incredible benefits to exercise in yoga, qi gong, Tai Chi. Sure, rocking out with weights or taking a high impact Zuumba class is good for your mind and body. But what if evolution was the focus of exercise? Not just fat-blasting or body sculpting or getting an endorphin high, but actually connecting the mind and body, facilitating the union of your higher self with your physical self? What might you be able to become if your mind and body were more whole and connected? See, I think we often treat our minds as separate from our bodies, not remembering that much of our body can be brought under the conscious control of our minds. But we have to connect them, link them, join them, so that they work together. Any kind of exercise practice can help the health of the brain, and health in our bodies helps keep the brain strong. But if the purpose of exercise was to strengthen the mind-body connection, then yoga with its balance and stretching, qi gong energy work and other practices can bring us into a level of union between our mind and body that we may not reach in other ways.
The little one practicing yoga with Mommy…
And what is exercise? It may not be a gym workout. Ever heard of kundalini yoga? There are techniques with breathing in this type of yoga that will energize your internal organs, shift your energy completely around, and make you sweat and you’re still sitting down! And qi gong can help you to go into a deeper more settled space in your self. That energy you want to take along on your day! Sometimes, between the crash diets and extreme exercise, we treat our bodies so harshly that they don’t relax and unwind, ever. Then we wonder why they don’t do what we want! Sometimes, what we really need is restoration and connection, and we can use exercise to do this for ourselves.
Getting my sunlight AND balance in!
So certainly, lift the weights, pound the pavement, play some hoops. But maybe you incorporate some other ancient mind-body exercise into your routine too. Your knees may not let you jog forever, but you can do yoga, tai chi, and qi gong into your elder years!
What kind of exercise helps you feel your best? Share more in the comments section below!