Thyroid Exercise

Thyroid Exercise: Moving, Being Active and Staying Fit in a Thyroid Nation World

Exercise is important for our overall health!  Thyroid exercise, is exercise appropriate workouts. So, we use the term what is ‘exercise appropriate’ for you! What works for some people doesn’t work for others. It also depends where you are on your healing journey. Follow us as we share different ideas for all stages of your fitness routine. We’ll explore Yoga, Meditation, Dance Flow and even ZUMBA ® Fitness, along with many more workouts. Stay tuned!

People with hypothyroidism often struggle with weight gain. One of the ways to counter the effects of a sluggish metabolism is to rev it up with regular exercise. Exercise causes tissues to be more sensitive to thyroid hormone and increases the amount of hormone that is secreted from the thyroid gland. While dieting can decrease the metabolic rate, exercise can bring it back up. Although all exercise is beneficial for hypothyroid patients, some types are better than others. Consult your doctor before beginning any exercise program.

As far as exercise, 10,000 steps a day is terrific. If you have the time and energy to increase to 15,000 steps per day, that could help. The latest government guidelines suggest that some people may need 90 minutes per day of exercise to lose weight. If your cardiologist approves, you might consider adding in hills on a regular basis to work your muscles differently and burn more calories. But, that is on the optomistic side. Getting up in the morning and doing some stretching is also very beneficial. A nice walk around the block might be all you can muster, and that is perfectly fine as well. The key is to MOVE!

In addition, I would definitely add strength training at least twice a week to build calorie-burning muscle. If you begin a strength training program, the scale may not move right away, but it should in the long run and it will help you keep the weight off. Not to mention, it will make you stronger and feel more balanced.

DanceFlow Zumba as Thyroid Exercise and Adrenal Movement videos, Coming Soon!!!!
by Danna Bowman

 

             

Can YOU, Zumba? (Go slow and easy. Remember those adrenal glands)

Aqua Zumba

Aqua Zumba Class, Cahuita, Costa Rica

 

Yoga and Meditation Can Help Heal Your Thyroid Issues….Read More HERE

 Meditation is good for the body!

Can Meditation Help Your Thyroid?

 

Listen and relax to the sounds. Close your eyes and try to think of 1 word or saying over and over. Or, just keep the music on in the background for a relaxing day!

Who’s on your healing team? (an excerpt from Jen Wittman’s, guest post at Zen Thyroid)

Zen Thyroid

Here are the top 5 practitioners I would invite onto your healing team NOW rather than investing in hospital visits later:

 

  1. Health Coach or Nutritionist The number one key to healing thyroid and autoimmune problems is healing your gut, so a health coach, nutritionist, or other practitioner who can help guide you to getting your gut healed would be my absolute first priority if I were newly diagnosed.
  2. girldoshaAcupuncturist I came to acupuncture after my husband and I were hit by a semi-truck. I had so many physical injuries and I was under a mountain of stress and health care bills. Luckily, my GP was at UCLA and the clinic next to his office was the UCLA East-West Medical Clinic. My doc referred me there to try to get a handle on my stress and my injuries. I am so glad he did. He recommended I get weekly acupuncture (which was covered by my insurance!), so for 3 years, I had acupuncture treatments a couple of times a month.  It really helped with so many things…and any new symptom that cropped up could be addressed in real-time with my beloved acupuncturist. He even helped me with nausea and other symptoms during my pregnancy. Acupuncture can be helpful for a host of things including thyroid.
  3. Massage Therapist Massage is more than just a luxury. It’s true that it’s something you have to invest in, but as with so many of these healing steps, it’s an investment in your long-term health and well-being. Medical studies have revealed that even a 10 or 20 minute massage (the kind you can get at the grocery store or the mall!) can have therapeutic benefits including improving immune function, boosting circulation, reducing stress, reducing the time it takes to recover from injury, and alleviating pain. It can also reduce depression and anxiety and promote restful sleep patterns. Massage also promotes circulation and the elimination of toxins from your body, which are key to improving your thyroid health. And, massage is making its way into “mainstream” medical treatment. Some insurance policies now cover massage, and some massage chains (like Massage Envy) are adept at filing claims with your insurance company for you.
  4. Reiki Practitioner I would have never believed that Reiki could work or even tried it if I wasn’t suffering so badly a few years ago. I read and read about it but was always worried that I’d waste money on a Reiki treatment because I wouldn’t be able to tell if it actually worked or not. Luckily, on a visit back home to Indiana, a friend of mine encouraged me to try out her Reiki practitioner when I was complaining of hip pain. The experience I had was life-changing. Not only could I feel this energetic massage, my nervous system felt relaxed, my thyroid felt vital and my body felt energized. I have not questioned the healing power of Reiki since and have incorporated it into my personal healing program.
  5. Yoga, Tai Chi, or Qi Gong Instructor Qi Gong (pronounced chee-gong), tai chi and yoga are all ancient forms of mindful, meditative and gentle exercise, and also happen to be easy ways to increase the circulation of your lymphatic system. The movements of all of these mind/body fitness techniques helps provide relief to the lymphatic system as well as assists with lymphatic drainage, which is important to detoxifying your body. These techniques also relax the nervous system while providing energy to the body. We all know we need to exercise, even when we’re dealing with thyroid symptoms, and a good yoga class can be gentle enough for even your tired days, while invigorating enough to be beneficial to your body.

DoyouknowtypeTen years ago, I only knew of thyroid disorder through school textbooks. It was only a medical condition to me which could occur in people in the outside world, until it happened to me one day seven years ago. And it was then that it occurred to me for the first time ever that thyroid disease can really happen to anyone, even me! In the beginning, I was a bit scared but once I found yoga and Ayurveda as safe and easy treatment options, I don’t even think much about it now. Life is just as normal as it always was and daily yoga practice has only made it better, helping me cope with the symptoms better. – Nikhila Singh, a patient of hypothyroidism since 2006.3wordsdoshas

Sources

Livestrong.com
CNN.com

 

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