Wellbeing and COVID: Pilates helps build strength and resilience

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought home the importance of looking after our wellbeing. That means both our mental and physical health. 

Though it’s true that we never really know what’s around the corner, it’s also true that it’s better to be prepared for life’s challenges. 

Keeping a positive mindset when life seems to be going ‘haywire’ is one part of the formula. Of course, that’s not always easy. 

Well-known Austrian psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor Victor Frankl identified three ingredients for a meaningful life: purposeful work, love, and courage in the face of difficulty.

Staying in touch with loved ones and being an active part of your community is so important.

The Pilates Method was born during a world health crisis

Josef Pilates, the founder of his now-famous exercise technique, knew the importance of maintaining a strong body. A body that moves with ease and supports your overall wellbeing.

As a German living in England during the First World War, Josef was incarcerated on the Isle of Man as an ‘enemy alien’.

To keep fit and healthy, he and many of his fellow compatriots followed an exercise regime he’d developed in his early years. He believed this helped sustain them all at a time when a deadly influenza epidemic was raging throughout Europe, killing thousands. 

Josef later moved to the US and started teaching the Pilates Method. He describes fitness as: The attainment and maintenance of a uniformly developed body with a sound mind fully capable of naturally, easily and satisfactorily performing our many and varied daily tasks with spontaneous zest and pleasure.

How Pilates can help you live your life with ‘zest and pleasure’

I love the idea of going about my ‘daily tasks with spontaneous zest and pleasure’!

Keeping my body fit and healthy is part of what keeps me going. And it’s why I love teaching Pilates. 

I enjoy giving other people the key to how they can move through their day more easily. Seeing them smile at the end of a class, happy and satisfied, knowing that they’ve worked hard and that their efforts will be rewarded.

Pain, especially dull, chronic pain, can wear us down. I’ve experienced back pain myself over the years. But Pilates is one way I prepare my body to cope with what life throws at me. 

I’m not saying Pilates will ‘cure’ COVID-19 or any other serious disease. But I’m certain it will help make you stronger - even happier – ready to go into battle against life’s challenges.