healthy choices

So I just did a thing

I've been working on my breath for a while now - first to help with pelvic floor issues (thank you Hypopressives), then to help with stress (Hyoppressives and slow breathing techniques along with vagal nerve work)

These have been very effective and are easy to fit in

But there are two markers that have been bothering me for a while

One is my average number of breaths per minute

When I first started it was around 16 breaths.  According to Patrick McKeown anything above …

So far we've looked at a few things that can help with heart health, for various reasons:

• cardio exercise - strengthens the heart and lungs
• strength exercise - lowers blood pressure
• Pilates/yoga/mobility - reducing stiffness in the upper body, which will reduce arterial stiffness

The final part to consider is - relaxation, stress management and sleep

Insomnia at midlife can raise a woman's risk of a heart attack by 70%

Exercising can help with stress reduction, relaxation and sleep - j…

So far we've looked at heart health in women, particularly around menopause, and how movement can help you - both cardio and strength workouts.

But where does that leave mind body exercises like Pilates and yoga?

As I said last week, bodyweight strength counts as much as lifting weights does - so any squat, lunge, hinge, push, pull moves you might be doing will help with lowering blood pressure in the same way.

But there is another reason why it helps

Stiffness in the upper body is related t…

Our health is one of those weird things that we don't really think about until something isn't working properly or we are in pain

I think why I didn't enjoy pregnancy the first time round was because I expected things to work/feel as they always did, and that definitely wasn't true anymore!  It's also why peri-menopause is a challenge...

I certainly never considered my pelvic floor until after having my first baby/prolapse

And when I injured my back, the constant pain impacted everything I di…

Did you start your health goals this week? 

For me it was lovely to start easy with Aerobics on Wednesday and then just a few classes

I did have to start even easier than I thought I would have to though...

We had a fun New Years Day - going in to Manchester to go bowling

I was very happy to win our first game and get the highest score I've ever had!

We also did a bit of ping pong and karaoke

As we were leaving we spotted a punching ball test your strength so decided to have one last chal…

I started to suffer with anxiety and obviously that brings in struggling to breathe sometimes and then panic attacks and that kind of thing.

I was also struggling with putting weight on and was mindful that I needed to do some exercise - I wanted to lose weight but also had anxiety going on.

I felt like all the other kind of exercise that I did - swimming, joining the gym, walking - they just never hit the anxiety. 

So I would do them and never feel relaxed or feel calm. And then I would go t…

I've been posting a lot on Facebook recently as I'm trying to raise my profile a bit

And it's obviously working as I'm reaching more people

But with that come people who aren't really a good fit for what I do

This meant that last week I got trolled on one of my videos 

It was just a simple video - showing hip circles as a way to ease out your back and hips after sitting for a while

So nothing massively fitness about it and nothing controversial

But this bloke said that if I lost some fat t…

I had a Balinese-inspired massage last week and the beginning of the ritual was to put a heated eye mask on

I then enjoyed being massaged with small and large bamboo sticks as well as with hands. 

Then the time came to roll over...

Weirdly, having an eye mask on made it really difficult for me to turn! 

That small dulling of one of my senses affected the rest of my body, especially my proprioception - where I was in space.  In the end I had to lift it off my eyes so that I felt safe to move!…