The first sixty seconds of your next workout can be the toughest, and provide the ripest opportunity to transform your brain and body. Imagine the first minute of your next workout. Are you excited? Dreading it? Relieved to get moving? Your mind and body might still be reeling from what I call the “pre-workout rush” – that wild few minutes of peeling the kids off of me, finding my workout clothes and headphones, and getting out the door.
This moment is the opportunity to really connect our brains to our bodies.
Exercise gives us a unique way of practicing mindfulness. Paying attention to your body anchors you to the present moment – it’s a way of training your mind to focus on what’s happening now, and letting all the thoughts about the past or the future fade into the background. As I say in my yoga classes, getting your body there is the toughest part. Open your practice with mentally arriving. That means pressing the “pause” button on the rest of your life. Whatever happened this morning, whatever commitments you have later, let those thoughts rest and focus on your body for the duration of your workout. Take a few moments to get your mind and body in the same place. Your results will amplify.
We know that exercise helps our bodies manage stress – immediately AND afterwards. Physiologically, moving your body releases feel-good endorphins and helps manage cortisol, the stress hormone. In your brain, exercise helps balance brain structures that may be over- or under- firing. As you engrain regular exercise habits into your life, longer-term benefits emerge: your strength increases, resting heart rate decreases (which a marker of efficiency and strength of the heart muscle), and you are able to focus better and get deeper sleep. You can maximize these benefits by implementing a mindful practice into your workouts.
These easy, accessible practices can integrate into your workouts to increase your mind-body connection and help train your brain to tap into present moment. Try these five mindful practices in your next workout:
- Begin with 6 deep breaths. Start with a one-minute exercise of intentional, controlled, and focused breathing. Breathe in for a count of five, the out for a count of five. Try to breathe in the air all the way to the bottom of your lungs. When you exhale, imagine the rest of the thoughts about before and after your workout clearing away.
- Do a body scan. As you start to move through your warmup, pay close attention to how your body is feeling today. Are there any areas of soreness or tension? Expansion or openness? Maybe one side of your body feels a little tighter than the other. Don’t go down the rabbit hole of trying to explain or diagnose why (my hip must hurt because I slept on it funny!) – just observe the data your body is streaming to you in real time.
- Focus on your breath. This will help you pace and enhance your technique. Swimmers have this figured out! If you’re running, maybe you pace your breath with your steps: four steps in, four steps out. In strength training, always exhale during the effort and inhale on the release. As your heart rate raises in response to higher-intensity exercise, tune in to how you can use your breath in those moments.
- Ride the peaks and breathe in the valleys. Whether or not you are doing a formal high-intensity interval training (HIIT) workout, notice the natural peaks and valleys of your intensity during the workout, and use the areas of relative rest to reconnect with your breath. On a steady run or bike ride, effort may lessen on a downhill stretch, or when you get a tailwind. In a yoga practice, this is often during grounding poses or gentle inversions, like child’s pose or downward dog. In a strength workout, it may even be the breath between each rep. Whatever type of exercise you are doing – zero in on your breathing during those moments of pause, so you can exert your effort during the next phase of intensity.
- Engage the senses. If you get off track and notice your mind wandering – pause your workout and use your senses to bring your attention back to your immediate surroundings. Point out one thing you like in the room and remind yourself of the story of how it got there. Stay still for thirty seconds and pick out three different things you can hear. Take a sip of ice-cold water and see if you can feel the path that it takes, cooling through your mouth and down your throat. When you feel like your head and body are reunited in the same space, continue your workout.
Wander, return, and start again.
The main thing to remember is that mindful awareness is non-judgmental. That means if you find yourself off track, make a note of it, then re-focus. The power of this exercise is in the return to the present; that’s when you’re completing your mental rep. You may find your mind wandering a thousand times, and that’s OK! The practice of coming back is where you are building mental stamina.
Have you tried these mindful practices in your workouts? What did you find most challenging or helpful? Comment below!
Moira Johnson Customized Fitness 