February 8, 2024

In this installment of Wellness and Pilates thoughts, we begin with the Hundred. You can catch up on any posts you might have missed here.

Hundred

If you have ever taken a Pilates class, you are familiar with this exercise. It is first in our mat work, second in our reformer and seen everywhere throughout the system. This is a breathing exercise intended to get your blood pumping and start things off with vim and vigor!

Health

“Physical fitness can neither be achieved by wishful thinking nor outright purchase,” Joseph Pilates

He is talking about overall health in this quote. In his book Your Health, he rails against modern living and how it is destroying our health. This book was written in the 1930’s but could very well have been written today. Health is a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.

Habit Bundling

A good system with keep you going even if motivation is lacking.  I highly recommend the book Atomic Habits to really understand the transformative power of habits.  Habit bundling, links something you don’t really want to do, with something you need or love to do and systematizes it making the new habit automatic.  For example, if you want to start a treadmill walking habit but often find yourself vegging out on the couch scrolling social media, only allow yourself to scroll while on the treadmill and set a regular time for this to happen.  If you want to improve your skincare routine link it to something you do daily like brushing your teeth.  Add 1 step at a time until the new routine becomes habit, just like brushing your teeth.  Small steps until you string a mile of good habits together.

Hydration

The quickest fix for your health is hydration.  The general rule of thumb is ½ an ounce for every pound of body weight.  Try using an app like Waterllama to track your progress.  We call our desk in the studio our hydration station. Want to drink more?  Put a big glass of water on your nightstand before you go to bed and drink it before you get out of bed.

Hobbies

People who are bored and have no interests fall down a rabbit hole of TV and social media which is terrible for mental and physical health.  Explore a variety of hobbies until you find something that sticks.  Some ideas – reading, knitting, gardening, cooking, scrapbooking, painting, sewing, jigsaw puzzles.  Something that doesn’t involve eating or shopping is right up my alley.

Homemade

Homemade meals have so many benefits, but I think the main one is time spent as a family. Here are a few more. Portion and quality control, less cost, can be healthier as you control the ingredients which can be guaranteed fresh and organic, your dietary preferences can be met, you can make excellent use of your free time by meal prepping and it can be an opportunity to micro learn new skills or recipes. You can prepare and share meals with friends and family as an easy way of hanging out.

Holistic

Holistic approaches to wellness address the person and body as a whole. It considers the physical, mental, emotional, social, and spiritual components of health and wellbeing. Pilates takes a holistic in the way it addresses imbalances to improve the body. You will never just work on one thing in Pilates – the entire body gets touched in every session. Holistic medicine is also an attempt to address the root cause rather than masking or treating symptoms.

High Chair

The highchair has the heaviest springs in the studio and can. Be used as a training ground for the Wunda Chair. We love it to advance the exercises that are often done on the Wunda Chair by going slowly here with the support of the heavier spring. It allows us to really perfect the form.

Help

Acts of service are so important for both those providing them and on the receiving end.

Happiness

Happiness does not mean never feeling sad.  This article does a nice job of framing happiness.  This article addresses the connection between happiness and health and has some useful tips.

Hang

Nothing turns a frown upside down like a good hang! Reversing your blood flow can really turn a mood around and we love to hang from the fuzzies to reverse gravity and decompress our spines. Whatever you reason, come hang with us!

Halo Therapy

Mr. Pilates was obsessed with lung health and breath, and as such I bet her would be a huge fan of the mat class, we run in the Roslyn Salt Cave. Salt therapy is not new. In the 1800s, salt miners in Poland stumbled upon what’s now halotherapy. Despite working in mines all day, the Polish miners didn’t have any respiratory conditions and were unusually healthy. They weren’t likely to get the colds or coughs that were common among other people. Today you do not need to be a miner to reap the benefits of salt therapy. Just visit a cave like the beautiful Roslyn Salt Cave. Read more of the benefits here. 

Hyperbaric

Hyperbaric oxygen therapy increases the amount of oxygen your blood can carry and can promote healing. Commonly found in hospitals as part of a multifaceted treatment plan, you can experience this form of therapy at Boost Health and Wellness in Roslyn. Mo likes to do her weekly session after a visit to the Salt Cave to maximize the benefits of both treatments.

Hands On

The laying on of hands has many references in the literary and musical worlds (shout out to Mo’s fave – JBJ) because it is so important in the physical one. The Real Pilates Teacher Training Program considers a hands-on approach to Pilates to be one of its main teaching components. My friend and mentor Alycea Ungaro felt it was so integral to the experience that she coined CHAI – cueing, hands on, alignment and integration to remind teachers to hit all the points in every session.

This list is less than complete, but a place to begin! Join us every month or so, as we dive into Pilates and wellness topics to bring you a little closer to your best self in a way that might be sustainable. 

Each post will tackle another letter of the alphabet and 14 topics that begin with that letter. You can experiment with any or all the topics between posts and keep the ones that work best for you. Stick with it as we add the next letter. Before you know it, you will have a habit stacked your way to wellness one letter at a time.

The road to wellness is about the journey, not the destination. We often focus on the body, but true wellness is mind, body, and spirit. I’d like to be your wellness concierge in addition to your Pilates instructor.