Sound Mind & Body

Slow Movement with Awareness: Better than Exercise?

How you move is as important as how much you move

Published in “Psychology Today” July 6, 2010

"Cardiovascular exercise is now known to be essential for health and well-being. If exercise is your only form of movement, however, it is not a very balanced diet. There is mounting evidence that slow movement, with body sense awareness, has astounding health benefits by itself and in combination with regular exercise routines.

According to a recent article in the Los Angeles Times, there are a growing number of pain clinics and integrative medicine centers that offer slow movement, awareness-based therapies (like hatha yoga and tai chi) for pain in a wide variety of conditions including "pain caused by cancer and cancer treatments, rheumatoid arthritis, fibromyalgia, multiple sclerosis, and other diseases and conditions."

Throw away the pills? Stop getting injections? Scrap the pain management therapy groups? Stop the sweaty workouts? Maybe not entirely, but regular slow movement classes are increasingly seen as having essential "nutrients" for the body.

Compared to a standard care control group, people with chronic low back pain who took 12 weeks of hatha yoga classes had less pain and more mobility and reported greater overall improvement in quality of life. Similarly, 12 weeks of tai chi has been shown to relieve the symptoms of rheumatoid arthritis, including less pain and stress, more body awareness and more confidence in moving. A literature search on Google scholar turned up many more studies like these.

Some pain clinics have been sufficiently impressed with these findings to fit some kind of slow movement practice into their treatment protocols. But why do they work? It is difficult to argue that the general benefits of cardiovascular exercise for health and well being extend to slow and deliberate practices like hatha yoga and tai chi. Some experts suggest that these slow methods instead increase the parasympathetic relaxation response which in turn reduces the stress response, promotes immune function that inhibits inflammation and stimulates healing.

Cardiovascular exercise with body sense has more benefits than exercising while otherwise preoccupied. Interval exercise, with frequent rest periods giving time to pay attention to the body , has benefits over and above long workouts. Slow movement is like Slow Food in which all acts related to eating - shopping, preparing, ingesting, and digesting - are done with awareness and presence.

NIA, or Neuromuscular Integrative Action, developed by Debbie and Carlos Rosas, is more active than the other practices mentioned here. It combines a cardiovascular workout with movement awareness and is done barefoot to music. NIA uses elements of tai chi, aikido, modern dance, Feldenkrais, and yoga, among other methods. Using the sounds and silences of music, students experience feeling the sense of joy in movement in a way that encourages an embodied self-awareness of agility, mobility, stability, flexibility, and strength. NIA teachers encourage students to actively listen, feel, and observe their bodies in motion. "

If you think exercising is boring
You have not tried a Nia class!

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Slow Movement with Awareness: Better than Exercise?

NEWS & EVENTS

Weight Loss classes for adults and children over 10. Call for info. 12-wks

GIFT CERTIFICATES Give a friend the gift of health, relaxation and fitness.

Slow Movement with Awareness: Better than Exercise?

GIFT CERTIFICATES
Give a friend the gift
of health, relaxation
and fitness.