Summary
Leslie Rusch-Bayer highlights how setting clear intentions can revolutionize the way women approach exercise throughout life’s many stages. From stress management to chronic disease prevention, she explains how purposeful workouts can nurture both body and mind, leading to lasting wellness. By tailoring exercise to individual needs and goals, women can embrace aging with resilience, vitality, and confidence.
As we journey through various stages of life, one of the most profound tools we can harness is the power of intention. For women, the concept of intention becomes increasingly significant as we age, offering a means to navigate change, maintain well-being, and embrace a fulfilling life.
Understanding Intention
Intention is more than just a fleeting thought or goal; it’s a focused and deliberate mindset that guides our actions and decisions. It involves setting clear, purposeful goals and aligning our actions with those goals to shape our desired outcomes. As we age, our priorities and life circumstances shift, making intention-setting an essential tool for maintaining clarity and direction.
The Benefits of Intentional Exercise
- Navigating Change: Aging often brings significant transitions from puberty to pregnancy, post-pregnancy, perimenopause, and menopause. Intention helps us approach these changes with a proactive mindset. By setting intentions, we can better manage these transitions, embracing them as opportunities for growth rather than obstacles.
- Promoting Emotional Well-Being: As women age, stressors change, and emotional well-being becomes crucial. Social media, jobs, children, finances, aging family members, and frustration with body and health changes all have the power to impact a woman’s mental health negatively. Intentional exercise can help cultivate a positive mindset, reduce stress, and enhance overall mental health. When we set intentions, we create a roadmap for our emotional state, fostering resilience and contentment.
- Enhancing Physical Health: Intention is also a powerful motivator for maintaining or improving physical health. Exercise is not one-dimensional. There is no stage of life where one type or intensity of exercise is “best.” Different age ranges and medical histories require different types of exercise to promote optimal health. Although walking may help relieve stress, intentional exercise has a purpose that pushes someone past their current fitness threshold.
- Intentional exercise goals help transform abstract aspirations into actionable plans, making it easier to sustain healthy habits.
- Preventing and Managing Chronic Disease: Intentional exercise is pivotal in managing and potentially mitigating many chronic diseases by improving overall health and functional capacity. While most chronic diseases benefit from exercise, the specific benefits and preventive effects vary depending on the intensity and style of exercise. Understanding the type of exercise most effective for relieving symptoms or improving laboratory values specific to each disease is crucial for achieving optimal disease management.
Exercise At Every Age
Intentional exercise looks different at different ages for other people. Young athletes may benefit from a mix of high-intensity interval training and strength training. Pregnant women benefit from low-intensity cardiovascular exercise to help promote blood flow to the baby and encourage a healthy birth weight, along with intentional flexibility work to help support delivery. Perimenopausal women benefit from a mix of moderate weight strength training and endurance-based cardiovascular exercise to help manage potential weight gain, balance hormones, and increase lean body mass. After menopause, typical exercises should transition to functional exercises. Functional exercise training is crucial for older adults as it enhances mobility, strength, and balance, reducing the risk of falls and improving overall independence. By focusing on everyday movements, these exercises help maintain physical health and quality of life as individuals age.
Embracing the Journey
As women age, the practice of setting and living with intention becomes a powerful tool for leading a fulfilling and balanced life. By embracing intention exercises, we not only navigate the complexities of aging with grace but also enhance our overall well-being, stress management, long-term health, and happiness. So take a moment to reflect on your intentions, set your course, step outside your current fitness routine, and embrace the journey ahead with purpose and passion.
No matter the goals, each person’s journey comes with struggles and moments of unease. Intentional exercise is hard as it takes each person outside their comfort and fitness level. To expect change, change must take place. If you have questions regarding implementing intentional exercise into your current fitness routine or making changes while ensuring safety, please schedule an appointment online below or call 309-692-6838 to discuss your options.
Consistent, purposeful exercise serves as a crucial component in both preventing and managing chronic diseases. Intentional exercise is not about achieving perfection but aligning your actions with your values and goals.
Leslie Rusch-Bayer
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Disclaimer: The information provided on this website is intended for general informational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. The information is current as of the date of publication or last review; however, medical knowledge is constantly evolving, and the information may become outdated over time.