Western science has taught us that muscle breakdown and muscle rebuilding is the basis of exercise, much of that rebuilding happening during recovery.Eastern science, typically more traditional and culturally-based practices such as yoga, teaches us the importance of relaxation. The stretching and elongation of muscles, followed by a period of relaxation is a natural way to also exercise the muscle. Many times, the relaxation is built into the practice. One is not better than the other, in fact, both are complimentary for the body. Recovery periods are also replenishing for the mind; the body needs time to recuperate, and this helps settle the mind for your next session. In my classes, you’ll always experience a mix of both. Here are three ways I incorporate this into my sessions:

At the beginning, take a moment to set your intention for the session, considering its role in your overall workout regime. If you have a specific goal, then consider this within your plan. If you’re here for general fitness and wellness, then this is a great opportunity to reflect on why this is important for you. Remember, your goals are different than your intention; your goals are your “endpoints”, your intention is “why is this my endpoint?” It is what fuels you to reach these goals, so you have this intention to fall back on when you need it.

During the workout, take your recovery periods intentionally even if it is just the 20 seconds between the next round. The pauses between rounds, the pauses between tracks, really take the opportunity to listen to the body, find any tension and release it. It is often the little things we aren't really aware of that can make big differences; tilting the chin down, keeping those shoulders back, etc. Use those pauses to reset the body, reset the mind. I used that phrase a lot, and over time, you will see the difference in the efficiency of your workout and your overall inner dialogue.

At the end of your workout, I like to always complete a session with a brief period of relaxation in my cooldown sessions. This helps the body come back down to its steady state and also sets us up for the next workout. We often like rush out of the gym and into our responsibilities of the day, but taking a moment to really pause and allow the body to rest also allows the mind to rest. This also serves as an intentional reflection on your workout session, giving you time to listen to the body and determine if you need to make any adjustments into your next session.

Between workouts, be mindful to attend to the body’s needs; food, water, and even other stretching. And in this nature, it would not be a true discussion about recovery if we did not discuss diet and/or hydration. Of course you should be consuming 8 cups of water at minimum in a day, but also be diligent to consume water during your workouts as you need it (many of you who attend my classes will know I am notorious for always having my water bottle, but forgetting to fill it… please do as I say, not as I do…) And what you eat is often more important than how much you eat and even when; the how and when part are petty exploratory and will depend on your needs and goals, but the what is always the consistent factor; we want to fuel the body with natural and healthy foods. Book a call with us if you would like specific feedback on your diet and your goals.

The body needs time to recover both during and between your workouts. The mind also needs this as a reset, so that the next time you are back in your session, you are ready to go. Use these recoveries intentionally.

Overall wellness is more than just eating and exercising … it is also about restoration…

The main pillars of restoration include physical, mental, and social restoration.

Physical means to take care of our bodies, giving it time to relax and recover, and fuelling the body appropriately with nutrients, hydration, and even our hygiene! Our bodies release sweat and odour as a mechanism to stay healthy, so taking care of our hygiene is crucial to our overall health!

In aerobic exercises (conditioning, strength, etc) restoration is often thought of as recovery, especially in a post-workout setting. This is required because of the force and pressure placed on the muscles, creating large quantities of lactic acid in the muscle fibres, causing fatigue. Thus, increased oxygen intake is required to counteract this. Restorative recovery allows us to rest and gives the body time to stabilize oxygen levels. In practices like yoga, we rely on elongation and relaxation; this is why many yoga sequences consist of poses that are slow, gradual, with proper breathing and periods of relaxation. Thus, restoration in yoga is directly built into the practice.

Yoga is also about reconnecting with the body, especially through the rhythm of the breath. It is often why when we instruct yoga, we offer instructions around when to inhale and exhale. This is also a huge part of mindfulness, which can help us improve our overall mental health. Mental health is not just about relieving stress, anxiety, depression and other mood disorders. Our mental health also includes our relationship with ourselves, our overall mindset, and how we perceive ourselves and others. Mindfulness really helps us to be more aware of our thoughts, teaches us to observe them without judgement, and then transform them into healthy patterns and inner dialogue. This impacts you in every aspect of your life, from your workout, to your job, to even your family life!

There is nothing more important than your family, friends, workout tribe and community! This is the final pillar of restoration; social restoration. Our community and circle are a source of inspiration for us, and we need to nurture our relationships to stay healthy. With relationships — romantic, spouses, friendships, children, family, even business relationships — we not only create bonds of compassion, unconditional love, and inspiration, but we are also able to learn so much about ourselves from one another! So actively reflect on how others make you feel about yourself and how this may be influencing your energy. Take notice of how your actions or thoughts change after these interactions; do you feel more tired or energized? Is this serving you or not? This is not about cutting people off, this is about transformation. Just because someone brings up “low vibe” states for you does not make them a negative influence! It simply means your low vibe states are being inflamed or surfaced, and this is an opportunity to identify and transform them. Are there other things happening in your life? What are other times do you feel this way? Our circles serve as a checkpoint — even in this unintentional manner! — for us to pause, address our energies and lives, clear some things that don’t serve us to re-stabilize. Showing up mindfully like this in our relationships is mindfully showing up for ourselves and others. The ability to transform our energies through relationships is a key part of restoration!

Wherever you are in your journey, make sure to make restoration a regular part of your life. Please be invited to try integrating the following practices into your daily life:

— start and end your day with some basic stretching or even yoga sequences

— drink 8 cups of water a day to stay hydrated!

— when you wake up in the morning, take 5 minutes to meditate! There are many apps you can download to guide you — in fact, I graciously offer free meditations on the Insight Timer app for individuals of all experience levels! — but it’s also enough to simply close your eyes, turn your attention to your breathing pattern, and follow the path of the breath through your body. You can also do this anytime you feel disconnected throughout the day and just need to refresh or reset!

— take a moment at night before bed to reflect on the people you are grateful for and how they make you feel

— call or text someone who inspires you on your next break just to tell them how much you appreciate them!

Please be welcome to get in touch via the contact form if you have any more questions about how to implement more restoration practices into your life.

I’m honoured to have been a wellness instructor, including cycling and mindfulness meditation for a few years now, and have, like all of you, seen a difference in my health throughout COVID. Personally, I’ve also noticed a difference in getting back into my wellness regimes and that even I’ve been slow to adapt back to social circumstances. While I have all of the love for the “Zoomiverse” and it’s ability to make our workouts accessible and widespread, I have personally noticed a substantial difference in my sessions when I am in-person.

When I workout alone or with clients virtually, the mindset is different. Community is crucial to health, our workouts, and mindfulness (Buddha actually taught that community is one of the “three jewels” of meditation!). When working out in-person, because we all are there for a similar reason, our individual intention becomes a collective intention, and immediately we are inspired and motivated to participate. Because there is no screen between us, we can authentically engage and connect, working together to achieve our own individual goals, by coming together. Truly, this is an energy — something that is hard to describe and can only be felt.

Taking initiative was also harder virtually. With virtual options, it is so easy to overbook and overcommit, thinking we have all of the time in the world to do everything, giving more excuses for being late or not showing up at all. I noticed I was just pushing things off, telling myself I could do it later because “hey, it’s virtual! I can do it whenever I want!” but my commitment waned. On the other hand, in-person sessions forced me to prioritize and manage my time better; knowing I had to factor in my drive and plan other parts of the day around my sessions made me focus on what I wanted to prioritize and my commitments.

Lastly, my self-talk is different. If I hit a slump in my workout, I can easily fall into my negative self-talk when I’m virtual. But in-person, seeing everyone else work hard inspires me to transform these thoughts. For example, a negative self-talk pattern I can easily fall into is the one of what I call “not good enough-ness”. When this creeps up for me, seeing others keep going motivates me to realize “everyone else here clearly believes they’re good enough — why can’t I?” As humans, we really are inspirational; and we can better tap into what I believe is the “power of our humanity” to lift one another and transform our negative self-talk, especially when we are in-person.

Coming back to the studio has enhanced my mindset, initiative, and self-talk. And most of this came from mindful observation of my thoughts, habits, behaviour and actions. When I started noticing how I changed following virtual sessions, I was empowered to take some different actions. As an instructor, I think it’s important to integrate mindfulness into our workouts; when we can observe our behaviours like this about our physical, mental, and social health, we know we are always empowered to prioritize our wellbeing — and will see this ripple effect into all aspects of our life. I offer a variety of mindfulness tools and techniques to enhance your focus, productivity, and efficiency in your workouts and all areas of life. This can be leveraged by all levels of studio-goers, whether you are training for performance, athleisure, or general health — and are best benefitted in-person for a truly authentic experience.

When we think about mindfulness, we tend to think of meditation and yoga, but mindfulness at its core is actually about transformation — inner (mental) and outer (physical) transformation!

Through mindfulness, we cultivate a state of awareness of the body and mind, to up our performance as well as our mental game. After all, we all know physical exercise is 80% mentality — and mindfulness can be leveraged by professional athletes, workout enthusiasts, athleisure hobbyists, and even people just looking to maintain your general health!

There are many ways to incorporate mindfulness into your workout, but below, we’ve laid out a few practices that can be integrated into a standard workout session, regardless of the type of activity.

Pre-workout

Take a moment to set your intention. Turn inward. Close your eyes and find the breath. Repeat your intention or goal for the workout with each inhale, and slowly exhale. As you breathe, you’ll notice the mind and the muscles in the body also relax. This will set the tone for your workout, keeping you focused and mentally prepared from the start, training your mind to stay present and attentive to your body. This improves the overall quality of your workout, seeing direct results on your focus and concentration.

Workout

Do you ever notice at some point during your workout the voice that pops in your head that tells you you’re tired or maybe you can’t do it? Many instructors will tell you to shut it down, but what happens is we end up displacing that into our workout. This will impact the efficiency of your workout, as you dedicate your mind power and energy to blocking the thought and may end up overexerting your workout — this means you are wasting energy which you need and could be using to complete your workout! Instead, mindfulness reminds us to come back to the breath, to reconnect with the body — the physical movements of the body, and back to finding that rhythm with the breath — so that you are conserving your energy and distributing it evenly throughout your workout! This is transforming your thoughts into useful energy!

This is also transforming your inner dialogue! When these thoughts arise in the future, we won’t need to displace them. We can simply return to the breath and be immersed in our workout again, instead of entertaining negative thought patterns. This increases our focus and productivity. You will also notice how it will help you in other areas of your life, like work and even at home.

Post-workout

Take a moment to come back to the breath, and feel it slowly fall into its natural rhythm. You will also notice that the heart rate will follow, stabilizing alongside the breath. Then take a moment of gratitude for the workout, for the opportunity to workout, for the efforts of the body in supporting your workout, and the mind in pushing you forward. You may find yourself grateful for your workout friends too, who motivate you and uplift you. And of course, be grateful for your coaches who work hard to motivate, inspire and educate you with tools snd options so can always perform at your best! We want you to succeed! By ending your workout on this type of note, you are subconsciously preparing your mind for the next session. This is a healthy way to add an authentic and personal qualitative observation to your quantitative measured results, so that you’ll be psyched to come back and keep working!

This pause also serves as a reflection — to assess your session without judgement and see what the body needs. Did you exert too much? Could you have gone a little harder? Do you need to take a rest period and let the body recuperate? Again, this will directly impact your entire training program and regime, by being able to tailor your workout according to your needs. This also transforms your short-term goals into long-term objectives, offering you a broader perspective of your health. As always, work with your trainers and coaches who are here to support you and offer suggestions that suit your needs. Bring your workout back into your control and actively participate in your health!

If you’re ready to up your performance and overall health, then check out our 6 Week Road to Wellbeing. and Vanessa’s classes to experience how mindfulness can improve your workout mindset and performance!