Pilates - Therapy - Wellness

A good sleep & stress relief guide for tired and menopausal ladies (this works for chaps too!)

Why we need optimal sleep:

A good night’s sleep not only makes you feel better, it gives you resilience, energy and vibrancy.

If you lack good sleep, you are likely to feel sluggish, overwhelmed and brain fogged! Even 2-3 hours of sleep loss leads to fall in mood and mental performance. Sypmtoms that are also linked to peri menopause and menopause.

Stress resilience and therefore better sleep is dramatically improved with healthy lifestyle practices and just setting regular time aside for some self- care.

What affects good sleep?

• Hormone imbalances
• Worry/anxiety
• Stress, exhaustion
• Cortisol/insulin fluctuations
• Lack of time/space
• Environment

Some Strategies for Improving Sleep Quality – Sleep Hygiene

• Go to bed and wake up near the same time each night
• Take a warm bath with essential oils – or have relaxing scents/diffusers in the room
• Try some quiet or soothing white noise/radio/audio book – no TV!
• Cool room – temperature between 65 and 70 degrees Fahrenheit.
• Dark room – eye pillow or mask
• Laptop/ipad curfew approximately 2 hours before bed (ideally by 8pm) to reduce blue light
• If you tend to wake between 3 and 4am, this is usually due to a blood sugar crash: try a high protein snack just before bed (milky drink etc.)
• But try not to eat a heavy meal before bed!
• Limit alcohol and sugar before bed.
• Self- guided relaxation or download – and deep slow breathing!

The Importance of napping

Research shows that a short post lunch-time sleep improves alertness and various aspects of physical and mental performance. If you get the opportunity, don’t feel guilty but check with your boss! An afternoon nap or lie down decreases sleepiness, increases alertness and lowers heart rate and temperature. Even resting your head and body, breathing deeply and slowly and shutting your eyes for a few moments can be really beneficial.

‘Radical Self-Care’ to reduce the stress load

This is about prioritising your own physical and emotional needs OVER those of others in need- even those closest to you! For you to be best able to share your gifts, and healthfully care for others, you must set boundaries and have energy and strength yourself.  Doing it all” is not healthy or productive!

Fitting ‘Radical Self-Care’ into your day

• Make time on the schedule for your own physical and emotional needs, joy, hobbies and rest
• What are you willing to give up that will not impact upon your own needs?
• Set consistent boundaries with others who are taking too much of your time and energy
• Give yourself permission to share the load with others
• Are you receiving joy from giving – or does it feel obligatory?
• Practise saying ‘no’ more often, if you are struggling, try this reply with any excessive request, for your time:
• “I’m rather busy, but I can’t wait to hear how you worked that out!” I’ve got to go now.”

For an in depth look at stress and hormones and a delicious two hours of me time – checkout our workshop for tired and stressed ladies on 11th July!

Our new Pilates and Yoga studio is now fully operational – although we still have ongoing plans for refurbishing the rear reception area to include the addition of a changing area/patient assessment room.

We are so happy to be in our new space and the feedback from our clients has been so positive, we’d like to thank all of them for their continued support and encouragement, after all they are the reason we are here 🙂

Timetable is building…

We have several well attended classes weekly, plus more private and semi- private clients thoroughly enjoying the new Pilates apparatus. Our current timetable is still under development and we hope to have most sessions up and running from January 2019

Workshop success

Liz Knowels a specialist Women’s Health physiotherapist, came along to provide our ladies with a fabulous, fun and information Pelvic Health Power Hour on the 9^th November which was fully booked from the outset! This  just demonstrates the great need for this type of information. We hope to collaborate more with Liz in the future to provide more education and support for ladies in all life phases.

We are delighted to welcome Frances Stephens on the 14th December at 09.30 – to offer the wonderful Miracle ball method – a non-exercise workshop – for muscle release and re- alignment – see the details here

Health & wellness check service

We all know that our health care system is under huge pressure – and that prevention of illness and maintaining our health is key to keeping our health system available for more urgent illness or trauma.

Our new studio was always meant to be more than exercise. Kate will soon be offering simple but essential 30 minute health and wellness checks in our patient assessment area. This can include your weight, blood pressure, heart rate, peak flow and oxygen saturations and stress levels – all important baseline measures of your current health and wellbeing.

There will be time to discuss any concerns and to make recommendations about referral to your GP if necessary.  Or in the case of injuries or women’s health issues, you may like to book in with a specialist Physiotherapist for a thorough assessment. We can make recommendations about diet and/ or ways to improve the effectiveness of your current exercise class. (You may also be called into your GP at certain times/ages for a wellness check – we would definitely recommend that you go along to that appointment in any case)

Be health proactive!

Often, it is the case that there is much you can do to be proactive in restoring and/or maintaining good health with lifestyle changes. Relatively simple adjustments are often all that is required – and we can discuss that too.

If you would like to book in for your 30-minute essential wellness check please contact us for more information.

Best wishes

Kate

Welcome to the Fitskool Pilates, Yoga and Wellness Studio

We are so excited to have moved to new premises in Baddesley! The new studio is located on the Botley Road in St Johns centre and is a bespoke boutique Pilates, Yoga and wellness studio.

We hope to be open by October half term week and we will be offering one off sessions for you to try.   The studio is really going to be a wellness hub in the community and we look forward to seeing as many of our existing clients there as well as lots of ew locals.

Please contact us for more details and to book your session

We are delighted with our new up graded and stream lined website. We are adding a membership site with lots of exciting content in store. See new pages with information about the new classes at our soon to be studio in North Baddesley. The extended timetable is about to go live with new courses planned for late October.

Do take a look at what is coming up in the near future!