Bone density and lifestyle
This month at Farnham Pilates we’ve been focusing on helping clients improve their bone density and bone health. This week we look at lifestyle changes you can make to improve your bone health. These assume you do not have problems with your bones; if you do, please talk to your GP about anything new you would like to try.
Exercise
Activities like swimming and cycling are great for cardio fitness but they are not weight bearing so they won’t help your bone density. This is why a variety of exercises is best for overall health. Great weight bearing activities include:
- Walking
- Running
- Dancing
- Climbing
- Skipping
- Jumping up and down on the spot.
What else can you do?
Try to fit weight bearing exercise into everyday life:
- Use the stairs rather than the lift
- Try to keep moving throughout the day
- When getting up from sitting or lying down, take your weight through your legs rather than using your arms to push you up
- Do up and down exercise on the loo every time you go
- Fit in five press-ups while you boil the kettle.
Take a look at my mum’s morning exercises here https://vimeo.com/349833103. She does this two-minute routine each morning for flexibility and for bone health.
Try to reduce stress
Another way to look after your bones is to reduce stress in your life. Stress increases cortisol levels in your blood, in turn blood sugar levels increase which makes calcium levels in urine go up. Of course, none of us can avoid stress all the time, but it is useful to identify what situations make you feel stressed and work out ways to avoid them. I have done this and now:
- I try to plan better so that I am not late.
- I write to-do lists and shopping lists so that I don’t forget things or have to do two trips.
- I keep a notepad by my bed so that if I think of something important, I can write it down and then forget about it.
- I avoid reading emails just before I go to bed.
- If I get stressed, I try to go for a walk (otherwise I would eat biscuits!
Next week in our final blog on bone density, we look at the Pilates exercises that can aid good bone health.
Squeeze and breathe,
Love Hannah x