How Should Your Breathing Change for Different Workouts?

While you may do it naturally, breathing can make or break your fitness routine’s success. If done incorrectly – whether you hold your breath, or breathe too fast, deep or shallow – your breathing can affect the exercise itself, how well you perform it, and your mind-body wellness. Let’s take a look at how you should breathe when performing different activities:

 

1. Strength Training: According to Certified Personal Trainers Jason Anderson and Nicole Nichols, ‘Strength training increases the body’s need for oxygen and automatically results in a faster breathing rate. However, many people have a tendency to hold their breath during strenuous activity like weight lifting. Known as the valsalva maneuver, this can limit oxygen delivery to the brain and cause dizziness, fainting, a spike in blood pressure and other complications. During strength training, the most important thing to remember about breathing is to just do it! Never hold your breath; be aware of how you are breathing at all times, whether through the nose or mouth. Beyond that, fitness experts recommend that you exhale on the exertion phase of the exercise and inhale on the easier phase. The exertion phase is typically the hardest phase of the exercise—lifting, curling, or pushing the weight. The easier phase brings you back to the starting position by lowering or returning the weight.’

 

2. Stretching: ‘Properly breathing while you stretch after your workouts helps your body relax so that you can return to a resting state, in addition to aiding in the mechanical removal of waste by-products of exercise,’ note Anderson and Nichols. ‘It may also allow you to increase your flexibility because proper breathing during stretches will help you to relax more fully and therefore stretch more deeply. Many people tend to hold their breath during stretching or to take short and shallow breaths, but ideally, we should take deep, relaxed diaphragmatic breaths. Most experts recommend inhaling through the nose and exhaling through the mouth when stretching. On every exhale, try to relax more fully or give into the stretch a little further, but make sure that you never stretch past a seven on a scale of 1-10.’

 

3. Pilates: Anderson and Nichols detail, ‘Pilates typically involves lateral or ribcage breathing…With your abdominals engaged (naval pulled toward your spine), inhale deeply through the nose without allowing your belly to rise; instead, think about the air filling your lungs and expanding them laterally and into your back while your belly remains tight and flat as if you are wearing a corset. On your exhale, open your lips slightly and push all of that air out of your mouth both forcefully and slowly, making your exhale audible (like a “whoooooo” or “seeeeeeee” sound). This style of breath keeps the abdominals engaged and helps you to perform Pilates exercises with greater ease and better control.’

 

4. Yoga: ‘Like Pilates, yoga has a unique form of breathing known as “ujjayi” breathing,’ Anderson and Nichols point out. ‘During this slow, even breath through the nose, one should inhale for four to five heartbeats, pause slightly, and then exhale for an equal length of time. The back of the throat constricts slightly to allow the air to create an audible sound. The audible breath serves as a “moving meditation” during a yoga practice…meaning that when poses get difficult, the mind can focus on the rhythm and sound of the breath to stay calm. This breath, which sounds like the ocean, helps you stay in the moment and centred while practicing yoga.’ Stepfanie Romine, a certified Ashtanga yoga teacher, adds, ‘The breath serves as a metronome for the body, each movement timed to the length of an inhalation or exhalation.’

Categories: abdominals engaged, breath, breath serves, Breathing, easier phase, exertion phase, experts recommend, phase, Strength Training, yoga

Ovulation: How Much Do You Really Know?

If you’ve begun your periods, you’re already in your fertile and childbearing years. The  amazing processes your body goes through and the sensations your body feels are all part of your discovery into this new body you have, and periods are an important element of that. Tied into those monthly processes is another process though – ovulation. You may not be aware of it, but ovulation is the key feature of menstruation. Between 10 and 19 days into your menstrual cycle, the first day being the first day that you bleed, one of your ovaries releases an egg. This egg is the female reproductive cell and is often referred to as an ovum or female gamete. Interestingly, despite us not even noticing this going on within the body once a month, this is the largest cell in the entire human body. It has an approximate diameter of 0.16mm. Before we’re even born, the ovaries of women already contain all of the eggs they’ll ever need throughout their life. This means, at birth, you have around 2 million, but by the time puberty hits you will have around 500,000. Of those thousands of eggs, it’s estimated that around 500 will become mature eggs between puberty and menopause.

Ovulation is the process of releasing a mature egg from the ovary, but why do women’s bodies go through this process? The egg is released in the hope that it joins up, and is fertilised by, the sperm (the male gamete). When this fertilisation takes place, the pregnancy begins. But if the egg is not fertilised, it will be removed from the body when the lining of the uterus sheds for what becomes your menstrual flow. That is the ovulation process in a nutshell, but there is actually more to it than that. There are many bodily functions that the brain oversee and ovulation is one of them. The part of the brain responsible for ovulation is known as the hypothalamus, and it works by sending signals to the anterior lobe of the pituitary gland, telling it to secrete luteinising hormone and another hormone follicle-stimulating hormone which stimulates the ovarian follicles which contain the eggs. The entire process works in three main phases, which are as follows. The pre-ovulatory phase or follicular phase, which is where the layer of cells around the egg softens and the lining of the uterus begins to widen.

The second phase works with the aid of special enzymes, where a hole is formed through which the egg leaves the follicle and travels through the fallopian tube. This fertile stage lasts between 24 and 48 hours. The final phase is the ovulatory phase, and lasts from ovulation until the day before your next bleeding. This is around 1 to 14 days, and the ovary begins to accumulate a cholesterol-rich tissue known as the corpus luteum. This produces large amounts of progesterone, to receive and nourish a fertilised egg. The levels of progesterone decrease if the egg is not fertilised. During this stage, premenstrual symptoms such as swelling, lethargy, breast tenderness and irritability, begin to show until you begin to bleed. This signals the start of a new cycle. For some women the symptoms are obvious, whereas many women don’t even notice ovulation – it’s simply a part of the inner workings of the body. Every woman differs, and you’ll get to know what’s right for you and your body as your periods become more regular and dependable. Understanding ovulation better helps you to understand what your body should be doing, and how it works each month.

Categories: body, Eggs, ovulation, ovulatory phase, phase, process, Symptoms, Women

Are You Going Through the Eight Stages of Rejection?

Whether your partner dumps you, your friend turns you down or a potential love interest doesn’t find too much potential in you, rejection really hurts. Everyone likes to be liked and when you aren’t appreciated for who you are, this can really impact your sense of wellbeing. In turn, rejection, or the fear of it, can further affect your sexual health and wellness – rejection is bad enough, but rejection when you’re naked? No thank you! In fact, relationship expert and sexologist Dr Gabrielle Morrissey, author of Sex in the Time of Generation X, finds parallels between rejection and the stages of grief. So, which stage of rejection are you in?

 

1. The denial phase: In this phase, you’ll probably be a bit stunned and have trouble believing that you have actually been rejected. If this sounds familiar, Dr Morrissey advises, ‘Acknowledge that yes, sad but true, the relationship is over (or it’s not going to start). Try not to dwell on the negative.’

 

2. The bargaining phase: Dr Morrissey asserts, ‘More often than not, “what ifs” won’t get you anywhere. Generally, it wasn’t only one thing that led to the rejection, but several things, and no amount of bargaining will turn the relationship into a healthy one.’ So what does she recommend? ‘Get yourself out of this phase as fast as you can,’ Dr Morrissey urges. ‘”What ifs” can easily spiral out of control. Reflect on any learning you can gain from the demise of the relationship (or date disaster), and apply that learning forwards, instead of backwards.’

 

3. The loneliness phase: Sometimes, it’s not just the rejection of one person you feel, but this one-off rejection can make you go through a general feeling of rejection, leading to feelings of sadness, self pity and isolation. If you’re feeling lonely following a rejection, Dr Morrissey suggests, ‘Surround yourself with people who do care, and who openly say so. Get your support team – friends, family – to spend time with you to break you out of feeling this way.’

 

4. The heartbreak phase: How intense this phase in will depend somewhat on how deeply you were involved with the person who has rejected you. ‘When you find yourself having sad thoughts, snap yourself out of it by literally snapping a rubber band around your wrist, or snapping your fingers, and make yourself think a positive thought about something that makes you feel happy,’ says Dr Morrissey. ‘If this doesn’t work, reach out to someone for support and distraction (but not the person who rejected you!).’

 

5. The depression phase: This means you’re feeling sad, worthless and perhaps foolish. Dr Morrissey notes you should allow yourself to feel the pain, ‘but do not wallow. Keep busy, exercise and take care of yourself. If necessary, seek support through counselling or from your doctor.’

 

6. The blame phase: ‘Once some of the intense internal feelings subside, the brain often seeks external blame,’ Dr Morrissey explains. ‘You might start with yourself, and then extend to them, but any which way it’s important to move past this destructive phase. There are two players in a relationship and fault is usually somewhere with both. Think about what you’ve gained and what they’ll be missing. Move past the blame and try to glean some learning from it instead.’

 

7. The anger phase: Not much explanation needed for this one; it basically boils down to “How dare they reject you?” Dr Morrissey points you should only indulge yourself in this phase temporarily. ‘Give yourself a time limit on how long you’ll be angry for,’ she advises. ‘If you don’t, you can become bitter, and that’s not healthy.’

 

8. The acceptance phase: Finally, you come to the conclusion that it wasn’t right and you’re going to be okay. Dr Morrissey enthuses, ‘Move forward with an open heart, ready to focus on new potential. Good for you. Now get out there!’

Categories: Acceptance, Denial, dr morrissey, morrissey, nbsp, phase, Rejection, relationship