What Is Mind Body Fitness
Mind Body exercises use a combination of techniques, which promote an introspective and meditative approach to physical and mental fitness. Most forms of mind body exercise use a combination of breathing exercises or modes, mindful focus (deep concentration) and prescribed movements with specific intended outcomes.
This exercise format applies the apparent connection between the health and functions of the body and mind to facilitate an effective and integrated approach to mental and physical fitness and well-being.
Beyond The Typical Workout
Mind Body fitness entails more than performing physical exercises to build strong and healthy bones and muscles. A great deal of the benefits derived from mind body fitness depends on the way the exercises associated with the format are performed.
The strong mental focus and awareness integrated into the format supports mental health as well. This is not necessarily as true with other forms of exercise.
Running, weight lifting, jumping rope, kickboxing, and other forms of intense physical exercise are not inherently meditative. Mind Body formats are; they provide the benefits of mindfulness and meditation along with building physical health.
History
Historically, mind body exercise and fitness concepts began to gain popular attention in the 1940s and 1950s. With a little research, it’s easy to locate pictures of Hollywood stars practicing yoga. Indra Devi a film star turned yogi helped popularize the practice during this era.
The emergence of mind body exercise and fitness is also linked with the origins of mind body medicine.
Modern Western mind body medicine is based on the research of Dr. Hans Selye. His study of the fight or flight response and the effects of stress as they relate to modern medicine established the concept. During the 1970s, mind body medicine continued to grow as a field of study and treatment.
During this same period, Harvard University’s Dr. Herbert Benson discerned an opposing psychophysical response in the body, which he identified as the relaxation response. His study of transcendental meditators illustrated the mind body connection by identifying the beneficial physical responses experienced by regular meditators as a direct result of their meditation practice.
Types Of Mind Body Exercises
While mind-body exercise and fitness are relatively new to the West, many of the formats used here have much longer histories. Some of the most popular mind-body exercise formats, yoga, Tai Chi chuan, Qigong and other martial arts, emerged in the East approximately 2,000 to 5,000 years ago as part of integrated spiritual, medicinal, philosophy and physical training systems.
Others like Pilates and the Alexander Technique emerged during the 20th century primarily as physical therapies, which purposely apply the mind-body connection for better results.
1| Yoga
This practice originated in India 3,000 to 5,000 years ago. Its objective is to allow practitioners to fully integrate mind, body, and spirit in order to achieve divine union.
Most modern practitioners focus primarily on the physical exercises, asana, associated with the practice. They desire the physical fitness and stress relief of yoga.
Today yoga is practiced worldwide with an estimated 300 million participants and over 20 million people in the United States alone practice yoga.
Yoga emerged as a well-rounded solution to many health woes of the 21st Century and is a mind body exercise that benefits physical, emotional, mental, and even spiritual health.
Yoga is a meditative tool that helps bring calm to the mind and strength to the body. Being that it is not simply a physical activity, but a broad approach to well-being it is safe to say that yoga may just be a miracle cure to energy renewal and total wellness.
In its broadest sense yoga is a system of mental, physical, and spiritual practices that aim to transform the body and mind with the use of three interlinked elements:
- Poses (asanas)
- Breathing techniques
- Meditation
Yoga’s core belief is that the body must be respected and treated mindfully simply because it is the main instrument for growth. Yoga poses target physical fitness, blood circulation, digestive health, flexibility, joint strength, muscular endurance and even skeletal strength.
The breathing element is the source of life and in yoga the practitioners learns to control breathing in order to generate life.
Through mindfulness and meditation, yogis are able to connect with the deepest part of their mind.
These core elements combine perfectly to achieve harmony of the body, mind, and spirit, brining not only immense physical benefits to the body but also teaching the power and potential of the human being.
2| Tai Chi Chuan
Tai Chi Chuan or Tai Chi shares a 2,000-year history with Taoist martial arts practices and Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM).
Tai Chi is a form of Chinese martial arts that in the modern world is a specific type of meditative movement that is used for health and wellness.
While it is often compared to yoga, it is a different type of mind body exercise. Unlike yoga, the poses, or movement in Tai Chi are never held, as it is a rhythmic type of slow flowing dance that keeps the practitioner constantly moving.
It uses a slow breathing technique combined with flowing choreographed postures to cultivate and direct chi (chee), energy or life force, for health and wellness. The purpose of Tai Chi is to balance and unite the body, mind, and spirit, by enabling the qi (chee), or life energy to adequately flow.
Tai Chi as a mind body exercise uses a combination of techniques to yield an introspective and meditative approach to physical and mental fitness. This enhances both emotional and physical well-being. Like other types of mind body exercise, it combines breathing with a mindful focus and movements with specific intended outcomes.
Three key elements combine to make Tai Chi supportive of both mental and physical health; they are movement, breathing, and meditation. The slow flowing movements of Tai Chi that mimic elements of nature naturally calm the mind, which alone brings with it a plethora of real benefits applicable to everyday life that are not found in traditional exercise.
3| Qigong
Qigong (Chi Kung) is the parent of Tai Chi and is often practiced alongside it. Qigong actually predates Tai Chi and informs some of its movements and philosophy. The practice focuses more on growing and managing existing internal energy rather than generating it as is the case with Tai Chi.
Qigong has deep roots in ancient Chinese health care and integrates physical postures, breathing and focused intention.
The name Qigong is comprised of two Chinese words. Qi (chee) means life force and represents all that flows through the universe. The word Gong (Kung) means a skill or accomplishment that is perfected through regular practice. When combined the word Qigong stands for cultivating energy and is a mind body exercise that benefits health and healing. It uses slow rounded sweeping movements and deep breathing to facilitate this process.
Like Tai Chi, Qigong practices can be classified as martial art, medical, and spiritual. All styles of Qigong have three things in common: posture, breathing and mental focus.
Various practices under the category of Qigong have particular purposes including the cleansing and healing of the body, the storage of qi (energy) or using the Qi to heal others. Qigong is highly adaptable, low impact and so versatile that it can even be performed by those in a wheelchair. It is accessible to any age group of any fitness level.
Like Tai Chi, Qigong provides serious benefits beyond that seen in traditional exercise because it includes and emphasizes the use of mind intent and breathing along with physical movement, making it a highly valuable form of alternative complementary medicine for many modern ailments and medical conditions.
A few of the benefits of Qigong include stress reduction, heart health, stamina, vitality and improved immunity. Qigong also helps with digestion, respiration, blood circulation, joint health, and depression.
4| Pilates
Joseph Pilates developed this therapeutic form of exercise as a young man to correct his physical frailties and predisposition to illness. He studied Greco-Roman fitness practices and gymnastics, yoga and other Eastern and Western forms of exercise to develop his system.
Pilates exercises require controlled breathing and movements, which focus on building the strength of the core muscles referred to as the Powerhouse.
5| Gyrokenesis or Gyrotonic Exercise
This system uses the breath, flowing, sweeping, and rounded movements, as well as energetic awareness to create space and strength in the spine and joints. It was developed over 25 years ago by former ballet dancer Juliu Horvath following an injury to aid his recovery.
This mode of exercise also offers an energetic component working with fluid and rhythmic oppositional movements push and pull to create balance and systemic integrity in the body and organs.
6| The Alexander Technique
The Alexander Technique teaches people to become aware of how they move and the level of exertion they apply to daily activities.
Where their method of movement creates tension or imbalance, this technique teaches practitioners how to adjust to correct the imbalance and use their energy more efficiently.
7| The Feldenkrais Method
Using natural movements, sitting, standing, reaching, etc., participants learn to move in ways, which support gains in flexibility and balanced movements. The method is primarily therapeutic.
In theory, participants’ creative application of natural movements creates new neurological pathways, which allow them to effectively compensate for an injury without creating further imbalance.
Physical Health Benefits
Typically, the physical health of people who practice mind-body exercises improves significantly. They experience visible and subtle benefits to their muscle and skeletal systems. They also experience improvements in metabolic function.
Mind-Body Exercises Improve:
- Range of motion
- Strength
- Flexibility
- Balance
- Bone density
- Grey matter density
- Coordination
- Immune function
- Blood pressure
- Metabolic function (lowers insulin resistance)
In general, all forms of mind-body exercise provide some level of these physical benefits. However, some forms provide greater levels of physical fitness. Others provide improved levels of functional fitness.
Physical fitness typically refers to conditioning required to perform specialized athletic activities or for aesthetic appeal. Dancers, athletes, actors and other performers as well as models may pursue mind-body fitness to enhance their musculature as well as enjoy the stress relief benefits of their chosen practice.
Many of the physically oriented mind-body exercise formats, Pilates, Tai Chi and other martial arts, enhance flexibility, muscle length, muscular balance, and give the form a more supple appearance.
Functional fitness focuses more on utility. Mind-body activities like the Alexander Technique or the Feldenkrais method focus on therapeutic movement, which enhances motility and mobility. The goal of the exercises is to ensure a person’s ability to move through their day healthfully and efficiently without aggravating current injuries or acquiring new ones.
The difference rests in the level of actual physical conditioning occurring during the exercises. For example, Pilates emphasizes physical conditioning for strength and power.
The Alexander Technique conditions the body to conserve energy and function economically doing daily activities. It’s the difference between a tricep pushup and a gentle overhead reach to explore range of motion.
Mental Health Benefits
Stress relief is one of the primary reasons people decide to pursue mind-body exercise. Americans cite money as one of their primary sources of stress closely followed by work and family related stress.
According to the American Psychological Association’s annual 2014 survey, 72% of Americans experience stress related to money while 22% experience extreme stress regarding finances. Of the adults surveyed, 42% do not think they are managing their stress well and 20% are not attempting to manage it at all.
Given the ill effects of stress on mental and physical health as well as relationships these numbers are concerning.
Stress contributes to: high blood pressure, insomnia, emotional instability, headaches, heart disease, obesity, poor judgement, depression, and anxiety. It keeps people from experiencing health and personal well-being.
Stress
Mind-body exercise provides an effective set of tools to relieve stress through the conscious employment of deep breathing, focused movement, and mindful awareness of an activity.
These tools essentially turn off the fight or flight response activated by stress and turns on the relaxation response. Mind-body exercise brings the body back into a state of equilibrium after experiencing the heightened state of negative arousal caused by stress.
Mind-Body Exercise Assists Practitioners With Building:
- Confidence
- A sense of well-being
- Cognitive function
- Capacity to end negative cyclical thinking
- Mental stability to end depression and anxiety
- Mental focus
- Emotional stability
The mindfulness aspect of mind-body exercise equips practitioners to make positive progressive changes in all areas of their lives.
Increased confidence, cognitive function, and emotional stability enhance practitioner’s ability to discern and make positive lifestyle choices.
It creates a positive cycle of behavior patterns, which increase individual health and wellness.
The integration of mind and body during practice unites, body, mind and spirit that brings enormous leaps in overall health and wellness that serves practitioners in their every day lives.
Pain Management
According to Web MD, 100 million American cope with chronic pain in their daily lives. Pain exacts a high cost in terms of economics and in quality of life.
According to the American Academy of Pain Medicine, chronic pain affects the lives and livelihoods of more people than the sum of those affected by cancer, heart disease, and diabetes.
Medical costs, lost wages, and time-off due to chronic pain costs from $560 billion to $630 billion using 2010 data. Approximately 42 million people experience pain or physical discomfort at levels, which disrupt their sleep.
The Impact Of Stress On Pain
When it comes to dealing with pain, a person’s mental state can make a significant impact on how well they are able to cope. A person experiencing stress generally experiences higher instances of pain. Stress triggers the fight or flight response. Fight or flight is accompanied by an accelerated heart rate, tense muscles, heightened awareness, and anxiety: these characteristics increase a person’s pain levels and their perception of pain.
The Power Of The Mind Body Connection
Pain relief strategies taking a mind-body approach may be primarily physical or mental. Some strategies offer a balanced combination of the two.
The Arthritis Foundation confirms what researchers have long believed that thoughts affect physical health. Thousands of years of history in Eastern natural medicine practices, Traditional Chinese Medicine, and Hindu masters have accepted this fact and used the power of the mind to reap physical benefits, such as the treatment of pain along with various other conditions. Olympic athletes, the military and even NASA astronauts harness the mind’s power to reap peak performance.
The use of mind-body exercises for pain relief continues to gain broad acceptance as the field of complementary and alternative medicine continues to grow and garner supporting medical data.
Mind-body Exercises For Pain Include:
- Yoga: Improves physical fitness, relaxes and strengthens muscles and activates the relaxation response. It is regularly recommended to manage back pain.
- Tai Chi: Improves physical fitness and increases proprioception. This increased awareness of the physical body enhances a person’s ability to appropriately perceive and manage pain. Tai Chi is also proven to induce the relaxation response in the body counteracting the stress response that exasperates pain conditions.
Tai Chi is typically described as “meditation in motion” or meditative movement that’s comprised of slow flowing movements that keep the body in a constant state of motion as each move flows from one into the other. During the practice, the mind remains highly concentrated on those movements, which along with the deep breathing yields a state of deep relaxation that calms the mind. Being that Tai Chi is so gentle and low impact it is ideal for those who suffer from pain conditions, and joint problems such as arthritis and fibromyalgia and studies show that Tai Chi can be of great benefit of such. The Harvard School of Medicine and many other experts recommend Tai Chi as a viable alternative treatment for pain, and stress. - Qigong: Being that Qigong is Tai Chi’s parent it is also an effective option for pain management. Various routines exist that make this form of meditative movement a viable option for those who suffer from pain conditions, and like Tai Chi this exercise is highly accessible for all ages and fitness levels due to its gentle and low impact nature.
- Meditation: The ability to quiet the mind becomes essential for chronic pain sufferers. As mentioned previously the stress response triggered by pain creates a physical and mental cycle, which worsens the condition. Meditation alleviates anxiety and activates the relaxation response, which eases pain.
Other Mind Body Practices For Pain
While not exactly exercises, these mind body practices offer more options for managing pain and can easily be used in concert with the methods described above.
- Biofeedback: This therapy acts like Tai Chi and yoga, but relies primarily on a patient developing their mental faculties. During biofeedback, a person, with the assistance of monitors, observes their body’s state (blood pressure, heart rate and breathing patterns) and intentionally relaxes away tension or pain.
- Progressive Muscle Relaxation: PMR is a technique that involves the tensing and relaxing of all the major muscle groups, one at a time. Through the process, the practitioner learns to detect the difference between tension and relaxation that allows them to consciously disengage the fight-or-flight response that is a precursor to pain and stress. Several studies found that PMR is an effective therapy on its own or alongside guided imagery for pain from osteoarthritis, cancer, and other conditions.
- Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT): CBT enhances a pain sufferers’ ability to deal with the psychological effects of pain. It teaches people to address and overcome the sense of disempowerment chronic pain causes.
- Hypnosis: The relaxed state induced by hypnosis allows pain sufferers to receive mental suggestions, which assist them with pain management.
- Visualization or Imagery: A visualization session requires the patient to call to induce images, sensory perceptions or sound which allow them to relax and experience some level of pain reduction. The practice seems to work best in conjunction with other CAM therapies.
Heart Health
According to the American Heart Association, any direct link between stress and heart disease remains unclear. However, high blood pressure due to chronic stress and stress coping behaviors, overeating, smoking, over consumption of alcohol and lack of exercise, contribute to the development of heart disease. The link between stress and heart disease make stress management a necessary component of modern life.
Mind-body exercise allows people to manage stress, prevent some of its negative impacts and aids recovery when stress causes disease or mental distress.
Many forms of mind-body exercise offer a physical component providing the benefits of physical activity. Others focus on changing a person’s state of mind, which offers some physical health gains as well.
Studies show all forms of mind-body exercise lower blood pressure and improve mental and emotional stability.
Mind-body exercises when incorporated into a healthy lifestyle potentially prevent heart disease and ameliorate some of its effects.
Yoga, Tai Chi, Qigong, meditation, biofeedback, deep breathing, and visualization exercises work well as complementary therapies to prevent and manage heart disease.
Each of these forms of mind-body exercise induces a state of relaxation while bringing about positive external and internal physiological changes:
- Stronger muscles
- Stronger bones
- Improved joint integrity
- Lower blood pressure
- Decreased insulin resistance
- Increased grey matter density
- Better circulation
When stress relief techniques are integrated into one’s lifestyle, the behaviors which contribute to heart disease become less likely to occur or easier to change.
Strengthen Immunity
The immune system and sympathetic nervous system perform their duties without a person’s conscious direction. In the past, medical doctors considered it impossible for a person to tell these systems how to behave in response to stimuli.
An analysis of data from several studies published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences website indicates some direct manipulation of the autonomic nervous system and the immune response is possible.
Inflammation occurs when the immune response sends cellular level assistance to distressed, injured, or infected tissues. It indicates the body is attempting to heal itself by repairing tissues and carrying away foreign materials, for example bacterial or viral infections.
When it works well, the immune response aids the healing process. However, if a person remains in a chronic state of inflammation, especially of a systemic nature like coronary artery disease, the effect becomes degenerative.
The analysis of available data indicates the activation of the sympathetic nervous system slows the immune response to beneficial levels where ongoing inflammation occurs.
A case study of Wim Hof an extreme athlete with the ability to withstand extraordinary levels of cold shows his ability to directly access his sympathetic nervous system using a technique he developed. The technique applies yogic breathing exercises for generating internal heat, exposure to cold and breath work. He is able to duplicate his results by training others.
Another study performed in Australia, gave similar results. It illustrated the ability of perception to influence the immune response. The study participants’ immune response performed differently based on what they were told. Each patient received an injection of the allergen, histamine in both arms. However, some of them were told a doll received the histamine shot and the first arm a placebo. They were told the second arm received the actual histamine shot. Another group simply received histamine shots in both arms.
When compared, the group with the doll allegedly taking one of its histamine shots showed heightened immune response in their second shot site, the one they believed to have the histamine shot.
Mind-body exercises build strong connections in the mind and body between conscious and unconscious actions. By actively connecting with the sympathetic nervous system when not under duress, a person becomes better able to turn it on as needed.
Turning it on creates a cascade of effects opposite those of the fight or flight response: lower blood pressure, decreased release of stress hormones, improved circulation through vascular expansion and mental clarity.
Better Sleep
Sleep disturbances affect millions of Americans. Insomnia affects about 10% of the adult US population. Its chronic form has serious consequences for sufferers, including higher risks for heart disease, obesity, and diabetes. Sleep deprivation also has serious emotional and mental consequences that can wreak havoc on work performance and social relationships.
Several factors contribute to the epidemic levels of sleep deprivation experienced by Americans:
- Artificially extended schedules (work and recreation)
- Night shift work
- Chronic stress
- Age related (older adults experience higher instance of sleep disturbances)
- Sleep apnea
- Pregnancy
- Menopausal night sweats and hot flashes
- Chronic pain
- Illness
Insomnia and sleep disturbances respond to a wide range of treatments. These include prescription drugs and complementary alternative therapies like mind-body exercise. It takes the expertise of medical professionals and the conscientious efforts of patients to find an effective treatment or combination of treatments.When practiced alone or in combination one, these mind-body exercises ease the transition to sleep:
- Restorative yoga: Restorative yoga poses are held longer than usual anywhere from 2 to 10 minutes. The postures typically include supporting props, bolsters, blocks, blankets or straps to help a person rest in the poses. While refreshing, restorative yoga brings about a sense of calm and stillness in mind and body conducive to sleep.
- Meditation: Practicing meditation prior to sleep allows a person to empty their mind of the day’s stressors and go to bed without the burden of racing thoughts or worrying over daily responsibilities. This works best if the meditation period is part of a bedtime ritual, which takes place at approximately the same time each night. This cues the body and mind to prepare for sleep.
- Progressive relaxation: During this practice, a person tenses and releases muscles, and muscle groups. The progression begins with the feet then moves upwards until every muscle of the body has been engaged and relaxed. Another version of this requires the muscles to simply be relaxed. The practitioner brings their attention to the desired muscle or muscle group while breathing slowly and deeply using their mental faculties to allow the muscle or muscles to relax.
- Tai Chi And Qigong: When the mind is calm, sleep improves. Both Tai Chi and Qigong calm the mind, elicit the relaxation response, and inherently improve a person’s ability to deal with stress. All of these effects are conducive to and promote a good night’s sleep.
Final Thoughts
The key to achieving success with any of these practices is consistency. The human body adapts well to routine. Routines create muscular and cellular memory. Overtime relaxing requires less and less effort until it becomes effortless and accessible almost at will. It also becomes a habit.
Studies from Boston’s Mass General Hospital have shown the effects of mind-body exercise to include less visceral response to negative stimuli and a continued sense of well-being even after practice lapses for a period of time.
Mind-body exercise continues to become part of the fabric of modern life. As healthcare costs continue to rise and lifestyles continue to include longer work hours and increased responsibilities, stress management tools become a requirement rather than a convenience.
Mind-body exercise is accessible to people of all ages and fitness levels; it simply takes a little time, research, and experimentation to find the activity or activities, which work best for you.
There are also many resources available to learn more about your options and begin a practice on your own. It is always recommended to consult with a healthcare professional before beginning any new fitness regimen.
