5 CORE PRACTICES FOR A HEALTHY SPRING
Reboot your wellbeing this spring by embracing these five core pillars shared by MORE BODY founder and pilates instructor, Melinda O'Rourke, for living a healthy, active and balanced life.
CORE ON ALWAYS
Let's talk more about your core! Your core initiates and stabilises most movements, therefore having a strong core improves balance and protects the lower back and overall assists with posture. Pretty important right?!
As spring has sprung, moving more will become a natural focus, particularly spending time outdoors.
If you're not sure you've engaged your CORE - visualise drawing the internal side of your belly button to the inner lower back OR gently bring your front ribs down to your hip bones, you'll feel recruitment of your core muscles.
CONTROL THE BODY
Stability before mobility is something I learnt as a Pilates student. If you move before your body is set up correctly, it may lead to injuries.
Re-set, re-think - do a quick body scan before you move, such as - ribs over pelvis, hip bones even, neck in line with the spine, abdominals gently drawn in.. if standing, feet connecting strongly with the ground, drawing knee caps up.
CENTRE POWERS ALL
Centering oneself is both powerful and necessary to re-connect both body and mind. We have a combination of 'body control, concentrating the mind and conscious breathing' - a powerful trio that work symbiotically.
If you're not centred it's like dancing without moving your legs, arms and hips... It all needs to work together.
CONCENTRATE THE MIND
It's so easy to become distracted these days. Bring all thoughts back to the task at hand - focus on 'the' now, whether it's work, cooking, having a conversation, doing pilates.
Keeping the mind from wandering is not always easy. Try to remove the peripheral noise and focus to finish your task. Also if you're doing a boring task, reframe it in a way that is more exciting, i.e. rather than the actual task, what the positive outcome(s) on completion will be!
CONSCIOUS BREATHING
Deep, purposeful breathing, inhalation and exhalation! As important as the bees are to the survival of the planet, breathing is our life source.
Practising deep slow breathing, helps us workout better and provides calmness in times of stress and disruption.
Visualise the breath entering the body, circling around the abdominals, up to the chest, neck, around the lips, cheekbones, eye-sockets to the crown of the head, then on the exhale - visualise the breath (like a mini slow tornado) exiting the body through travelling the same path it came in!
