Physical therapy provides rehabilitative practices to help people recover from impairments to their optimal movement functions or to alleviate recurrent pain in movement. Commonly people are referred to physical therapists post-injury. Physical therapists also are sought out by the patient themselves in seeking treatment for an ailment. Physical therapists understand the function of the body and are thus able to treat and help improve quality of life from simple concerns like posture to major treatment like post-hip replacement.

Pilates was founded by Joseph Pilates as a method for strengthening muscles using the mind, body and spirit. He combined elements of yoga, dance, gymnastics and martial arts into a routine that would help one lead a healthy life and improve ability for activities of daily living.

Incorporating Pilates into your physical activity routine is important because it brings a variation of working different muscle groups in a different way than you can through dancing, running, swimming, biking or even yoga. Pilates builds strength and helps with muscle function.

Sarcopenia, the loss of muscle, is often associated with aging and can lead to frailty, impairments and a lowered quality of life. Resistance training is a method that has been successfully shown to help alleviate the occurrence or slow down the effects of sarcopenia. Resistance training is extremely important for maintaining your muscle and bone density, especially as you age. I think you should do resistance training because it doesn’t require a lot of time to complete and the benefits from it are tremendous. This will help in so many ways from ensuring that if you fall your bones won’t be as brittle to being able to carry your baby great-nephew without hurting your back to having more stamina for walking the dog to being able to pick up heavy groceries!

Cardiovascular training is important for improving health. Just looking at the physiologic changes that occur in our cardiorespiratory system during exercise are evidence that the benefits are large: increases in heart size and volume, VO2max (amount of oxygen consumption at maximal capacity), lung volume, cardiac output, stroke volume and blood volume. ‘Cardio’ causes your resting heart rate to decrease and can even lower your blood pressure, not to mention how it can help improve your good cholesterol (HDL) and lower your bad (LDL) while increasing your strength and helping you shed excess weight and fat. Cardiovascular training comes in many forms: from running to swimming to dancing.

Meditation is personal and can be tailored to suit your comfort level so you will still be able to achieve its benefits.

The ancient practice of mindfulness and understanding the mind/body connection has interested various practitioners from yogis to gurus to philosophers to healthcare professionals. Meditation is the art of training one’s consciousness to open in a way that transforms the person positively by achieving a higher state of awareness. Meditation has been linked to spiritual connectivity, lowering resting metabolic variables such as heart rate, blood pressure and respiration, and an increased understanding how our bodies and minds relate. You should try mediation to help reduce stress.

You are in the moment, which encapsulates the past, present and future. The Zen space is the same as the world around us, and everything is interconnected so our embodiment is linked to our actions, which are connected to our wellbeing. There is a strong pull of a connection between others and ourselves. When you meditate, for example, you place your connected mind-body in the moment and it is a process. The mindset of Zen is to work at a deeper understanding of the infinite.

Exercise is important for a person’s wellness and the body’s overall health. The body is crucial to our being as a person, so embodiment is essential. Movement is vital for one’s health as well as for happiness and the good life. Since we are embodied beings, taking care of our body is not only optional but also mandatory for us. My argument for a holistic view of the body is tied to the idea that the mind is an active bodily thing that cannot be separated from action. I believe that bodily engagement is necessary for the mind. Understanding how our mind and body are connected will aid in understanding how exercise affects us.

If you can figure out how to create a workout schedule that fits with your lifestyle without any major adjustments then it will not feel like a burden. That will allow you the flexibility to begin a routine that could be more manageable.