Making Fitness Part of Your Self-Care Routine

As the self-care movement continues to take shape, you may equate self-care with indulgent behavior, never thinking of fitness as part of your self-care routine. However, self-care refers to caring for your whole self and includes everything from physical fitness to mental fitness. So a well-balanced routine that includes fitness should be part of your self-care regimen.

A Pilates reformer workout can offer you many outlets for self-care. Not only can you get a whole-body workout on a Pilates reformer but also you get a well-balanced mental workout as well. The breathing, mental focus, and body awareness included in your Pilates workout can give you a break from anxieties in life and refocus you mentally for the day.

If you want to include more self-care in your daily routine but don’t understand how fitness corresponds, this post explains how important fitness is to self-care routine and gives you tips on how to incorporate more sensible self-care into your day.

Positioning Your Pilates Reformer Workout As Self Care

If the lockdown taught us anything—and continues to teach us—taking care of ourselves in every aspect is essential. Whether working out or keeping balanced mentally, we know how much we need to take care of our whole selves. However, figuring out how to balance everything in life in a healthy way can itself produce anxiety. So use a workout on a Pilates reformer to alleviate some of this stress and make fitness an essential component of your self-care routine.

Many things get in our way of working out:

• Lack of time: Nothing feels more frustrating than looking at your tasks for the week and needing more time in the day to get it all done. When it comes to fitting fitness into your schedule, having a Frame Fitness Pilates reformer offers a great way to get your workout completed daily. With a variety of streaming workouts, you can have a workout ready to go whenever you’ve got the time. Make sure you take a good look at your schedule and see where you might need to take out tasks focused on others so that you can focus on your fitness, which is essential to your long-term health.
• Lack of direction: Whether you’re new to Pilates or exercising altogether or you’re a seasoned athlete looking for something new to try, a lack of direction can make you press pause on a workout, especially a new one. However, the Frame reformer comes equipped with easy-to-use resistance controls and detailed workouts by professionals so that beginners and avid fitness fans alike can get started right away with a challenging workout.
• Lack of confidence: So feeling like you fit in can often keep you from going to the gym. Even the most inclusive gyms may make you feel uncomfortable, especially if you don’t know where to begin. When you have Pilates equipment at home, however, you can tailor your setting to make yourself comfortable, and you don’t have to worry about who’s watching or judging you, making your workout as relaxed as possible. With the streaming workouts to your Frame reformer, you can get a one-on-one studio experience from the comfort of your customized home setting.

No matter what might be stopping you, fitness needs to be a part of your well-balanced self-care routine. Some of the very things we fight with mentally every day can find a relief valve through working out. Working out provides a unique form of self-care, one that can benefit your health and well-being in several areas, including:

• Improved sleep: Many of us fight to get enough sleep because our days get packed with essential tasks, and we often struggle to even fall asleep and sleep well. Considering that sleep offers your body an essential recharge both mentally and physically, we shouldn’t struggle to get the sleep we need. Instead, we should do things that promote healthy sleep habits. Working out can help you sleep better and a regular workout routine can give you that “good” tired feeling at the end of the day, the kind that makes you ready for bed at a decent hour. For optimal mental and physical functioning, your body and mind need rest, which helps you stay strong to fight disease and lower your risk of chronic illness.
• Improved mood: Stress can lead to depression, but exercise can help. Exercise provides self-care in a two-prong effort by improving both physical and mental health. Not only can exercise improve your mood and reduce stress, but you can enjoy better cognitive functioning with a regular exercise routine. When you pair your movement with the mental exercises you receive with your Pilates equipment at home, you can experience the mood-boosting benefits of exercise in addition to the emotional release you receive through Pilates. Working on a Pilates reformer engages your brain through mindful movement and specific breathing techniques that release the tension you store in your body.
• Improved brain function: Exercise has proven brain-boosting benefits—offering better cognitive function and increased memory. Anytime you learn a new movement, you build new neural pathways, which is like strength training for your brain. Pilates emphasizes mindful movement, which means you are engaging your mind and body simultaneously, creating a positive connection while also challenging your brain. The deep muscle activation required by Pilates also helps to fire up a healthy nervous system that communicates with your brain.
  

Self-Care Tips Outside the Gym

Fitness includes more than just working out physically and mentally, and since fitness is an essential element of self-care, you can incorporate many of these ideas into your self-care routine can file them under “fitness”:

• Get up and stretch and move: Many of us have sedentary habits, not necessarily because we want to but because our jobs or lives demand it. Whether we have to sit through a commute or a child’s sports practice or sit all day for work, you can enhance your self-care in small ways throughout the day by simply getting up and moving. Small amounts of movement throughout the day add up, and even if you just have five minutes to spare a quick walk around the office and then a slight stretch can do a lot to clear your head and ease tense muscles. If you happen to work from home, you can incorporate a quick workout, especially if you have a Pilates reformer from Frame Fitness. You can easily stream a quick workout in the comfort of your home and get back to work.
• Breath: We not only tense up our muscles when experiencing stress and anxiety, but we also practice bad breathing habits. Whether we hold our breath or breath shallowly and excessively, taking a moment to breathe can help bring your focus back. Because Pilates uses breathing techniques that require you to think through what you’re doing, you can practice some intentional breathing for a few minutes to calm your mind and release tension.
• Visit your doctor: So visiting the masseuse might be more enjoyable and still an excellent addition to any self-care regimen, booking an appointment with your doctor for a checkup can give you the details you need to inform your healthcare decisions. You can gain peace of mind and sensible advice by visiting your doctor. Understanding what your numbers mean for cholesterol and blood pressure can help educate your decisions when it comes to your daily activities and forms of self-care.
• Practice mindfulness: Although “mindfulness” has become a buzzword with many meanings, mindfulness is a regular part of practicing Pilates that can enhance your everyday life. You can take the concept of mindful movement and apply it to how you think and react to your day—and your day’s interruptions. Practicing Pilates means practicing mindfulness, and the more you practice it, the more you will intentionally use it outside of Pilates to wall off the white noise and focus.
• Rest: Not only do you need the recharge from sleeping, but sometimes you just need to rest. Be sure you get plenty of sleep and plenty of rest. We find it easy to overextend ourselves and say yes to everything, but your body needs peace and rest. So feel empowered to reschedule suggested gatherings or decline invites (or firm requests) to work late to take good care of your health and well-being.
• Hydrate: Who knew self-care could be so simple and cost-effective? Along with sleep and rest, your body needs plenty of water to function properly. So be sure to hydrate throughout the day to give your body what it needs to repair and recharge for the adventure ahead.

Self-care doesn’t have to be complicated or costly, but self-care should include fitness. When caring for your whole person, you need to include both physical and mental health, and working out regularly can offer the mental and physical release you need to enhance your self-care regimen.