Workouts for the mind are just as important as workouts for the body. According to The Beauty Bean’s website, meditation while working out can be beneficial by increasing metabolism, lowering blood pressure, and increasing brain activity.

Pilates and yoga are popular exercises to work the mind and body simultaneously. These exercises will help to make you feel good not only physically, but mentally too.

PILATES

Pilates is a method of exercise which aims to encourage the use of the mind to develop core postural muscle strength, stability, and flexibility, according to What is Pilates’s website.

Blair Coughenour, junior, has been doing Pilates for about two years and decided to try it because her mom had been doing it for years.

“Pilates was originally an exercise for dancers, but it is a core based workout,” Coughenour said. “You do different series of exercises to strengthen and lengthen your muscles. Sometimes you may use bands, exercise balls, and weights.”

Each type of Pilates exercises and tones a different part of the body. According to the Pilates Exercise Guide’s website, Stott Pilates works the spine, while Cadillac Pilates works to improve flexibility, and Windsor Pilates works to improve weight loss and muscle strength.

Some of the benefits of consistent Pilates exercises include improved posture, balance, flexibility, and coordination, according to What is Pilates’s website.

“It’s relaxing and fun, but you get a great workout without even realizing it,” Coughenour said. “It strengthens your core, tones your muscles, and basically is just good for your overall health.”

YOGA

Yoga cannot be defined because it must be experienced and felt in order to fully understand it, according to Yoga Hub’s website.

Kasia Konsor, junior, prefers yoga over other forms of exercises because it helps her in order to relax, while still getting a good work out at the same time, she says. She has tried many types of yoga, including hot yoga, but mainly exercises in the ashtanga style.

“Yoga not only exercises the body, but also the mind,” Konsor said. “It’s very relaxing and helps with flexibility, posture, and other things that straight weights or cardio can’t.”

Along with physical benefits, yoga can also help clear the mind and help one to meditate, according to The Beauty Bean’s website.

“Yoga can be a form of meditation, so it reduces stress and helps clear my mind,” Konsor said. “Physically, it has increased my flexibility, strengthened my back (therefore improved my posture), and resolved some hip-foot alignment issues. It has also increased my balance and upper body strength.”

Although she believes yoga can be challenging, Konsor advises yoga beginners to stick with it and continue practicing their poses.

“For people new to yoga, I would say don’t be intimidated,” Konsor said. “Practice will bring you closer and closer to mastering positions. It just takes time and patience. A [yoga] teacher once said, ‘yoga is all about learning to be comfortable in uncomfortable situations.’ Basically it means the more difficult the pose, the more you have to embrace the discomfort and turn it into something positive.”