The Benefits of Mindfulness for Pilates

If you’re a Pilates or health enthusiast, chances are you’re well aware of the mindfulness trend sweeping the wellness industry. It’s gained popularity and momentum for good reason - it promises so many benefits to both mental and physical health, and is becoming more and more of an integral part of any healthy lifestyle and routine.

Mindfulness complements the emphasis Pilates places on the mind-body connection, teaching you to better control and understand your mind, and reconnect to your body. When incorporated into your Pilates practice, mindfulness can help to elevate your teaching, improve your relationships with your clients, and enhance your own wellbeing.

Plus, the skills of mindfulness can make your teaching practice more enriching, transformative and comprehensive for your clients.

In order to better understand how you can experience this yourself, let’s dive into what mindfulness actually is, and look at some of the many benefits it promises.

What is mindfulness?

Mindfulness is the practice of observation. It’s the ability to pay complete attention to anything you’re feeling or experiencing internally and externally in the present moment. It’s noticing these things, without judging, paying attention to each of your senses and your surroundings as you simply observe your reality in the present moment.

A common misconception is that mindfulness requires trying to “quieten” or control your mind and thoughts. This actually isn’t accurate. Instead, by simply noticing what’s showing up for you in the moment, you’re able to observe your internal and external reality and allow any thoughts to come up, and then to pass without judging or holding onto them.

Mindfulness is widely renowned for helping you improve your self-awareness, emotional health and stability, and sense of wellbeing. There are various forms which mindfulness can take, including meditation, breathwork and even body scanning. Our new Mindfulness, Meditation and Breathwork for Pilates teaches you the fundamentals of each of these, to help you achieve maximal benefit and results from your mindfulness practice - whether it be part of your teaching practice, or your own personal practice.

Now you have a better understanding of exactly what mindfulness is, let’s cover some of the benefits.

1. It teaches you how to be present.

Studies show that learning to focus on the present moment has a positive impact on your health and wellbeing. It can also help to reduce stress, anxiety and depression. Think about it, if you’re completely immersed in the present moment, then your mind isn’t wandering to the future, catastrophising or anticipating the worst-case scenario, as is a common experience in anxiety. Therefore, when you’re fully present in the moment, you’re likely unable to feel anxious at the same time.

Mindfulness teaches you how to tap into this feeling of presence, so you can regularly get in touch with this in your day-to-day life. This improves your ability to deeply connect with others, as you’re more engaged in conversations and interactions rather than being distracted by stress or racing thoughts. It also enhances your ability to enjoy life, because you’re more able to notice the simple pleasures of life around you (which you’d otherwise miss), and you’re better equipped to deal with life. When you’re mindful, you can be more fully engaged in activities and relationships, and resist becoming caught up in worries about the future or past.

2. It helps you make healthier choices and habits.

Mindfulness has also been shown to increase your awareness of your own choices and habits. It can assist with things like emotional eating, tuning into your body’s signals to identify when you’re hungry and full, learning to honour your body’s need for rest, and even choosing to eat more nutrient-dense foods. Mindfulness teaches you to pay better attention to your mind and body, and this often results in the development of healthy habits.

3. It reduces stress.

We’ve touched on this already, but mindfulness helps you choose how you react to stressful or “negative” feelings and thoughts when they arise. Instead of being tempted to dwell or ruminate on whatever is worrying you or causing you stress, practising mindfulness can instead help you return to the present, giving you the ability to observe the same thoughts and emotions without judging them or being caught up in them. This does wonders for your stress levels.

4. It improves your mental health.

Mindfulness has been shown to help manage mental health conditions from anxiety, to depression, to addiction. It can help improve your mood stability, and even enhance your relationships by fostering deeper connection and greater vulnerability.

5. It enhances your sleep.

Mindfulness can also improve the quality and quantity of your sleep. If you’re someone who struggles to fall asleep due to racing thoughts crowding your mind and keeping you awake, mindfulness can help you move past this noise and overcome any anxiety around falling asleep. It can also increase the quality of your sleep, leaving you feeling more rested the following day.

6. It supports physical health.

Mindfulness has also been shown to improve physical health in various ways. In addition to relieving stress, it can reduce heart problems, lower blood pressure, and relieve any gastrointestinal or digestive issues you may be experiencing. It can also help reduce your production of cortisol, your body’s stress hormone, which has endless flow-on effects to benefit your physical wellbeing including rebalancing your hormones, improving mood, and enhancing sleep once again.

Now you’re aware of just some of the endless advantages of mindfulness, it’s important to note that not all programs or apps claiming to teach you mindfulness practices are created equal. Be sure to seek evidence-based resources if you’re looking to develop your own mindfulness practice, or incorporate mindfulness into your Pilates teaching.

The Benefits of Mindfulness for Your Pilates Practice

Mindfulness practices also offer specific benefits to Pilates - both for instructors implementing mindfulness techniques into your classes to support your clients, and for your own Pilates practice. Some of these profound benefits include:

• Enhancing the mind-body connection. Mindfulness brings awareness to your body and the present moment, so you and your clients can pay closer attention to your movements and how you’re feeling as you move through a Pilates sequence. This allows you to be more connected to your body as you practise Pilates, so you can mindfully activate and engage each muscle group required in each movement you perform. Not only does this enhance the effectiveness of your classes and flows, it helps perform each movement to the fullest extent, with correct form and involving all the right muscles.
  
  
• Improves results. As a flow-on effect of better mind-body connection, you and your clients can achieve faster, superior results from your Pilates practice by incorporating mindfulness. In enhancing the mind-body connection and allowing your clients to intentionally activate all the necessary muscles to perform key movements correctly, you give them the best chance at seeing faster, greater results from their workouts. If they’re recruiting more muscle groups, enhancing their range of motion, reducing their risk of injury and performing each movement to its fullest and most challenging extent, they’ll notice a difference in their strength, physique and ability very quickly!
  
  
• It helps you and your clients be present during their Pilates practice, enhancing their enjoyment and satisfaction from each session. This also means Pilates classes become a respite, a chance to switch off, destress and take some “me time” away from the busyness and demands of everyday life. Pilates becomes a sacred, cherished time.
  
  
• It elevates your energy levels. You and your clients will experience improved energy, due to the emphasis of meditation, breathwork and other techniques on deep breathing. This provides the muscles with more oxygen and energy, helping you and your clients to exercise more efficiently, and feel stronger and more energised during your Pilates practice.

For this reason, we’ve developed our very own Mindfulness, Meditation and Breathwork for Pilates course curated by an expert educator, Ryan Mannix. Ryan is an experienced yoga, meditation and breathwork instructor, and curated this course specifically for Pilates instructors and enthusiasts looking to develop their own mindfulness practice, or to incorporate it into their teaching practice. The course takes you through practical, actionable videos equipping you with tools and techniques to instantly incorporate mindfulness, meditation and breathwork into your Pilates classes or practice. This will allow you to promote the physical and mental wellbeing of yourself and/or your clients, taking your Pilates practice to the next level.

With the increasing demand for mindfulness in the health industry, this course is also a great way to set yourself apart from others in the Pilates industry, and an excellent way to upskill and elevate your confidence and knowledge.

Ready to develop and implement your own mindfulness practice today? Sign up for new our short course here! Or, you can book a chat with our friendly course experts for more information about how this course can benefit your teaching or personal Pilates practice today!