Inhale/Exhale. Wellness Challenge 2019: Day 10

Wellness Challenge 2019: Day 10

Inhale/Exhale

Day 10 of the Wellness Challenge 2019 is all about breathing through a workout. The NYT Well Challenge talks about the importance of keeping steady breath during a workout. Getting enough oxygen to your muscles is important during exercise. It helps with endurance, recovery and motivation! Breathing is just amazing!

This task recognises the pitfalls associated with breathing and exercise. The common mistakes that inexperienced exercisers make. Ones that they might not realise they’re making. These mistakes include; breathing too quickly, breathing inconsistently and holding your breath. I definitely hold my breath. Especially when the workout is hard! I think it’s some kind of reflex.

What I Thought

Today, I followed the advice about exhaling at the hardest point of the exercise and inhaling on the relax. Push-ups and bicycle crunches were the worst today but with my new breathing exercises, I found that I focused more on how I was breathing and less on how much I wanted to cry. So, I suppose the task did its job.

Like with most of the ‘move‘ tasks there’s a focus on mindfulness during exercise. A focus on listening to your body and reacting to what it needs. I didn’t even realise I’d been holding my breath during workouts until this task pointed it out to me. Honestly, I feel a bit stupid. But, I work out in my room on my own so I’ve never really had the luxury of someone else telling me what I’m doing wrong.

I felt better too. I found it a lot easier to get to the end of the exercises when I linked my breathing with my movements. And though my arms feel like noodles right now, I’m sure I would feel a lot worse if I’d have held my breath for the full fifteen minutes…

If you liked this, here’s my first ‘move’ post for the wellness challenge…

And as always, thanks for reading!