Nursing is a highly demanding profession, both physically and mentally. In light of these challenges, it’s important to find a mode of exercise that suits you. Everyone has their own personal taste in exercise, but this article wants to demonstrate the power of pilates for those who are uninitiated.
Pilates and yoga are often confused with one another. While they have many similarities, it may surprise you that pilates originated in the early 20th century. Joseph Pilates developed a method he called Contrology. We now go with the eponymous name of ‘pilates,’ however.
Pilates comes in several forms, and most of them center around nine fundamental Pilates principles. They’re all to do with alignment and, as Joseph Pilates’ original name for the method suggests, control. Whichever type of pilates you land on, they’re all quite similar in this regard. Here are the main reasons for you to opt for this type of sports:
1) Improves your mental clarity
Student nurses often have to travel; in addition to learning in their job, they’re also churning out papers like an essay writing service expert. Keeping all these plates spinning at once demands that our minds have time to calm down.
Through its emphasis on breathing and flow, accentuates our mental capabilities. The near-meditative state can be advantageous for sorting out our mental clutter and making our plans for the coming days and weeks more palatable.
2) Improves your balance
As a nurse, balance is crucial in performing day-to-day duties, reaching over patients, and carrying precious medicines between wards, all in a busy hospital environment. Mat workouts are one of the most common ways of practicing pilates.
Pilates on a mat has the advantage of keeping you on your toes, which is where you’ll be during those long shifts. It feels terrific to have bare feet while exercising. That connection with the ground is, to coin a phrase, grounding. Your balance is a gift, and pilates will improve it tenfold.
3) Strengthens your core
A pilates table is a large bit of equipment which enhances various pilates exercise by adding resistance or changing the angle of exertion. A strong back and core are necessary for handling patients with care, and the range of exercises which pilates includes is well suited to building this type of strength.
By improving these facets, you will also improve your posture. And we know the psychological impact that presenting ourselves well has on those in our environment and our self-image too.
4) No impact training
Injury is a risk many nurses cannot take. Pilates allows a comprehensive workout without putting your body in harm’s way. Though soccer or hockey may feel like vigorous ways to let off steam, pilates can make you get a sweat on too. Given the tiring effort required to be a nurse, it only makes sense that your workout doesn’t beat you up even more.
5) Tones you up
Vanity is vanity; no one likes it. But coming off a long shift, you may feel like a frumpy and frazzled being. Pilates works in a very calm, controlled manner. These movements tone your body in ways and places you wouldn’t have thought possible.
Feeling fit, healthy, and looking good is a natural impulse. It can help improve your conception of yourself. The meditation element will also help you improve that sense of self-worth.
6) Helps meet friends and socialize
Collaboration, community, and camaraderie; that’s what being a traveling nurse is all about. Working in unfamiliar areas away from family or friends can make you feel lonely. This is a fantastic way to meet friendly, like-minded people. Whether they’re nursing or not, group exercise is a way to build strong bonds.
As nurses, we’re super aware that social bonds are essential for our health. So, combining the healing, strengthening power of pilates with a social group is the perfect way to unwind after a shift or prepare for the next one.
Hopefully, these points have persuaded you to grab a mat and sign up for the next class in your town. Traveling nurses need to look after their bodies and minds. The restorative power of pilates is perfect for this profession. And, given the benefits of exercise, which are extolled on patients, being able to talk about it with them from the perspective of experience will help them embark on this journey too.
