Why Women Need To Exercise During Pregnancy

For more info visit All Belly Pregnancy

Fitness, good nutrition and overall health are important for every woman at each stage of life, but never more
important than when a woman is pregnant. Maintaining fitness during pregnancy helps both mother and child during the pregnancy and can make the mother’s recovery much faster after birth as well.

Pregnancy puts incredible demands on a woman’s body and can often cause fatigue, excess weight gain, foot, knee, back pain, and depression. Working out helps to alleviate and even prevent some of those issues, builds and strengthens muscle for delivery and recovery, and helps a woman to get her pre-pregnancy body back much sooner.

Now that you're pregnant you're scared to start or keep exercising. Most women know that exercise during pregnancy is safe.

Yet when it comes to the particulars -- Is it OK to work my abs? Can I still lift weights? Should I quit running? Should my heart rate be low? How often? How much should you do? How intense? -- myths and misconceptions still persist, which prevent an all-belly pregnancy and hold women back.

No doubt, there is a lot of fear out there that stops pregnant women from exercising through all three trimesters and robs women of these following outstanding effects:

• Detoxifying the body
• Increasing insulin sensitivity
• Reducing stress
• Increasing energy level and mental clarity
• Boosting metabolism
• Improving cardiovascular function
• Helping the brain gain better control over the body
• Maintaining appropriate weight gain

Being Inactive Is The Real Risk!

The benefits of prenatal exercise are undisputed - for both mom and baby.

In fact, many experts say that being inactive is the real risk leading to high blood pressure, excessive aches and pains, and a high risk for gestational diabetes.  It will also give you a healthy buzz helping you feel better physically and emotionally, and the calories burned can help prevent the outrageous weight gain. Our exercise regime will also help you cope during the postpartum period (another stressful period!) and keep the “baby blues” at bay. All good stuff to get excited over!

There are some guidelines, though, to ensure that your workout program is safe for both you and your baby.

Things You Must Do When Working Out During Pregnancy

Always consult your doctor
Most women are able to work out during pregnancy without any problems; however, some conditions and issues may mean that you will have limitations. Problems such as hypertension, gestational diabetes and prior early labors may mean that your activities should be somewhat limited.
Bear in mind that many OB-GYNs are hesitant to give the go-ahead on exercise during pregnancy because of the lawsuit potential if something goes wrong. If your doctor seems unwilling to okay an exercise program, ask if he has specific concerns and what they are.

Start and stay hydrated
Hydration before, during and after a workout is important for everyone. But during pregnancy, women tend to have lower blood pressure due to the large volume of blood being directed to the womb. Dehydration, even in the mildest stage, can make this problem worse and even be dangerous. Start your workout well-hydrated, sip water throughout your exercise session and be sure to rehydrate afterwards. 

Monitor your body temperature and heart rate carefully
It’s extremely important that a pregnant woman’s body temperature not get too high. Hormonal and immune system changes mean a slightly elevated body temperature during pregnancy. It can be easier to get dangerously overheated while working out.

Be sure to wear light layers during exercise, try to work out in a cool or shaded environment, and take a break if you begin to feel hot, faint, weak or dizzy.

You’ll also want to monitor your heart rate carefully. Because of low blood pressure, an elevated heart rate can cause dizziness, fainting and even more serious problems. Most studies done on this topic suggest that a max heart rate of 140bpm should be safe, but consult with your doctor.

Fit Kegel exercises into your pregnancy fitness plan
Kegel exercises strengthen the pelvic floor, helping you to avoid incontinence and other issues during and after pregnancy. The great thing about Kegels is that they can be done several times a day, no matter where you are. No one will even know and you’ll be glad later that you did.

Dress for comfort, not glamour
There’s absolutely nothing wrong with looking amazing while you are working out, even when you’re pregnant. But pregnancy is not the time to wear overly restrictive clothing, especially things that are tight around the waist, calves and ankles. It’s also important to make sure your shoes are the right type for your workouts and in good shape. You may also need to buy one size larger than you normally wear to prevent or accommodate swelling.

Things You Must Not Do When Working Out During Pregnancy

Don’t try to participate in contact sports, high risk activities, or intense exercise
You will have plenty of time to pick up where you left off in horseback riding, roller derby or high-intensity interval training. For now, these things are off limits. The risk of falling or being hurt by some sort of impact is enough of an issue but your balance will be off during most of your pregnancy as well so it’s just not safe. It’s simply not worth the risk.

Don’t try to start a new workout method or activity
No matter how concerned you are about getting fit or avoiding an unhealthy weight gain, your first concern needs to be your safety and the safety of your beautiful baby. You can try something new (and more likely to trip you up) after the baby is born.

Don’t continue to work out if it feels wrong
“No pain, no gain” does not apply to pregnant women! If what you’re doing is causing pain, stop it immediately. The same applies if you feel dizzy or faint and most certainly if you notice any bleeding.

Don’t do balancing exercises or those that require you to lie on your back late in pregnancy
Not only are you carrying extra weight, but your body is distributing that weight in a way that you’re not used to. This can affect your balance, making balance exercise unadvisable. You also have plenty of extra pressure on your back without adding to it.

Don’t engage in multi-joint exercises while you are pregnant.
Again, this is largely because of your new (and often lacking) sense of balance. It’s also not a good idea because of low-blood pressure during pregnancy and changes in the hormones which help lubricate your joints.

Do not lift heavy weights during pregnancy.
Not only is this an issue of balance, but lifting heavy weights also increases intra-abdominal pressure. Excess intra-abdominal pressure can be a serious matter causing muscle injury or even early labor or bleeding.
Working out throughout your pregnancy will help keep up your energy level, prevent unhealthy weight gain, and avoid a whole laundry list of pregnancy’s possible side-effects. Being fit will also help you to be in top shape for birth and get back into bikini shape afterwards. Just be sure you do it safely and it will be an important part of enjoying both your pregnancy and your new baby!

For more info visit All Belly Pregnancy

Womb Wisdom

We come forward now at the brink of a "quantum shift", but what is it? What is this evolutionary shift we are all on the brink of? It is about women regaining their power and channeling it into the right places. We have just forgotten where to channel it.

The deepest, most ancient secrets of life lie within the womb of every woman. The womb is the holiest temple in your body, the most energy filled place in your body, the place of your most clarity, intuition, creative expression and power. It is your primordial voice, and connector into the web of all life, the web of interdependence that connects all living beings to each other.

We are all birthed from the womb, yet it is one of the least known parts of ourselves. This is not surprising, for it holds the greatest power that a woman possesses; the power to nurture, grow, and create new life. This power of creation is what each woman holds within them, usually only exercising it in the process of giving physical birth.

The womb is not just a place to give birth to a baby; it is a place and state of being that births US, that births new realities, that holds a power for deep transformation for ourselves, and for others we come into contact with. The Womb is a womans feminine core, the generator of tremendous creative potential, vitality, boundless well being, sensual power, and manifestation. It not only births children, but projects, careers, spiritual potential, personal healing and the depths of relating we all yearn for. It births the divine masculine and feminine, bringing balance and loving power to our deepest relationships.

If you are pregnant, check out Inner womb secrets

Imagine it; there is a place within us that holds the power of life and death, yet we only use it one or two times in our life. The rest of the time it lies neglected, its power and ability to love and create hidden, misunderstood, and forgotten about.

Yet this has not always been so. In the past, and in present day indigenous traditions, women have known the way of the womb, the knowledge, practices, and power of the womb, and how to use it to create on a profound level. Some of these great women from both East and West include Mary Magdalene, Mother Mary, the female Buddha Yeshe Tsogyal, the Priestesses of Isis, the Daoist and African sisterhoods, and the druid shamanesses of Ireland and England.

As women, we have become so divorced from the womb, our primal centre of gravity, joy, creativity and soul connection, that we have forgotten who we are, and how we could be. Instead we try to compete on masculine terms and conditions to get by in the world of today. The flowering of the feminine rose has become dwarfed by the pillar of the masculine, instead of both sitting side by side in harmony, and relative equality.

This imbalance is caused by us forgetting about the womb, and its true purpose and power. In this forgetting, men too have forgotten how to relate fully to the feminine, and how to be truly human, building walls of intellectual justification and anger around the wounds and holes that have been created by this separation. Many religions and ways of behaviour have been influenced by this separation, creating a grossly distorted view of spirituality and social behaviour that has formed the current infrastructures of society, and how we are living life today. These structures have been created by a handful of men without women, creating an innately flawed and imbalanced worldview and society.

The effects on human society of this imbalance are many and manifold, impacting every area of human life, from the environment, to nuclear arms, educational and cultural values, spiritual traditions and commandments, the loss of family values, and the failure of many intimate relationships and marriages between man and woman. In short, the loss of womb wisdom and power has created a huge imbalance on planet earth that impacts all of us, creating an unstable foundation for our cultures and our lives that is threatening to topple over at any moment, so lopsided has it become.

The increase of intellectualization allied with a lack of actual womb experience means that women are increasingly finding their centre of gravity in their heads, rather than in their wombs. This arises partly as a reaction to the male dominated ideas and concepts that form the foundation of most religions and societies today.

A womans centre is in her womb-heart, not her head. She lives on earth, connected through relationship, not in an abstract concept or code of what life is. As soon as a womans centre of gravity shifts to the womb, she becomes centred, empowered, present, and grounded. When a womans centre is in her head, she suffers badly, and becomes more disempowered, trying to compete with men who are mind centred, thereby losing connection with her feminine essence.

Women are sad that they are centred in their heads, as they innately know that it is not true for them. When they start doing womb work, their sadness and rage well up within them as they realize this, and they start to shift their centres of gravity and resonance back to their primal centre, the source of their joy and womanhood. This then allows the heart to flower, deeply, and organically, flowing in spontaneity, emanating from the web of life, from what is uniquely individual to you at any moment in time, from all that nurtures and supports life, from empathy, and from compassion.

For thousands of years women have been without a role model, not knowing where to turn, or whom to look to to inspire and nurture them. Women have not known where to belong, and the changing roles imposed upon them by a reason driven society have further pushed the essence of the feminine nature into seclusion, and into a pastiche of true femininity as witnessed in modern day consumer society where this pastiche is used to sell products, seduce and manipulate.

Deep within, you know that you must go beyond what is considered normal, and acceptable, in order to stand in your own authority. Woman becomes able to accomplish her own birthing when she leaves behind her attachment to the collective consciousness, the traditional beliefs, institutions, and what is considered in the collective to be culturally acceptable womanly roles and virtues. Separate yourself from those fear driven voices and approaches of both women and men who attempt to belittle the power and full significance of birth and transformation. For the Womb creates new life, letting go of the past.

In this separation, you become able to truly trust yourself, and what is uniquely individual to you. This process of transformation depends upon your ability to feel and fully experience essential feminine values birthed from the womb. Merely having knowledge of, or understanding it rationally is not enough. You have to experience the feminine, making it your own, and living her fully in this initiation, holding your deep felt belly wisdom and gut knowing, your gut instincts to preserve and keep life going.

All life benefits when women come to love their bodies, and live from their truth. For the womb is the generator and keeper of Life, source of full feminine expression. The womb and ovaries are the light generators of the feminine, and the creator of joy. When they are cleared and healed of the many veils of disempowerment, mis-education and repression, you connect fully with your own feminine core in clarity, joy and the full, free expression of life-force, the orgasmic energy of bliss.

Activating the womb is a powerful act that heals many deep seated age-old wounds in both the female, and male, consciousness. Healing the womb helps activate and illuminate the collective psyche, and also powerfully heals on the personal level. For when the womb is cleared, healed, and restored, women come into their full power. By doing so, the men too become balanced, whole, and healed.

This empowerment is infused with loving wisdom, holding, caressing, and sometimes pushing the masculine into action, and healing. This feminine fire has the potential to restore balance between the masculine and feminine, by holding the crucible and container for heart-centred relationship. By women living from their centre of power, joy, and love, and men supporting this, both become deeply nourished through this deepening and opening within themselves. When a woman and a man have integrated both their aspects, they can rise above being just one or the other, realising that male and female are just roles to be played, like putting on a robe to suit different occasions. The fluidity of moving between these polarities is accessed when a woman is totally able to be a woman, and a man a man.

The womb provides the basis for a revolution in society. An awakened, socially conscious, and egalitarian society is built on the foundation of the womb that honours life in all its forms as the basis of society, not as an "add on" or a pleasing secondary thought. This divine design is activated and manifested through the organic flowering of the womb and application of its laws and rhythms. This divine design descends soul energy into manifestation; at present, human civilization descends mental energy into manifestation, and ascends root chakra or survival/power/sexual issues into manifestation.

The single most important issue facing humanity is not war, the environment, or poverty; it is the opening of the womb, and the standing up and liberation of women. All else has been done, all teachings on Oneness, liberation, manifestation...and still the world is the same. Women hold the key for the world to become a peaceful, just and balanced place. In their standing up, men too will become liberated, and lay down their arms, their pollution creating devices, and share their riches with others.

With enough open and healed wombs, no war would ever dare be fought by men who listen to the voice of the womb, to the empowered, life affirming woman in their life who shares the sustaining, nurturing power of life. Poverty would be wiped out as female leaders share, distribute, and create structures for people to become self empowered and living in real relating. The environment will heal itself with the presence of a more fertile consciousness, nourishing life from its source. With this nourishing love or manna, nature regenerates itself at its core level, and grows the dying planet back to Life. This is already happening in conscious, manna filled communities worldwide, and is part of the template for the remembrance of our natural divinity as individuals, and as a collective.

The strength and depths of the womb provide the security and foundation deep within to rise up and express freely through the heart. Head and heart work within grounded foundations sunk deep within the womb. The head by itself cannot come into the heart. The womb is required to bring down the mind into our true centre, that can then rise up and express through the heart, from solid foundations.

The womb feels autonomous, a voice of its own, and can respond depending on what is required in each moment. The wombs voice is wise, ancient, powerful, and connected to the primordial. It is sunk deep, whereas the heart gives rise to passion, inspiration, and expression of love. Womb holds, heart gives. Hearts desire is to unify and bring things together - to end division. The womb holds the space for that to happen, for that to birth into manifestation.

Heart manifests womb, and womb holds heart in a secure space, allowing the heart to go deeper into its layers, rather than just being on the surface or merely sentimental aspect of the heart. The womb holds the steadiness, the unwavering centre and ground of creation, steady, still, reliable, the well of creation. With this foundation, the heart then feels safe and secure, feeling its innate and natural ground to rest on, lean and rely upon, a place to arise from.

One can say that the Womb is the banks of the river, and the heart is the river. The womb is the container for the alchemy of love to occur and rise into manifestation and being. Mind is the servant of womb heart, designed to carry out its orders. The heart is incomplete without the maturity of the womb. The womb establishes deep within the character, the clarity, the commitment and stamina, housing the ground upon which you may come to take solace and guidance throughout your greatest tests in life.

You have within you this reliable source of stillness. Do you have the heart to discover it?

So men.. stand up and support the women in your life. Do not be scared that you will lose your power, for you will in fact gain the greatest power of all: love borne through humility, that which makes a real man, a perfect man, a king and leader to suit your queen and guide. Have faith, and listen to the womb; it will serve you to enter your truth, your power, and your true maleness. It will serve you to enter the greatest bliss, the greatest softness, and the deepest power, the wisdom of which will make you stand out as a real man.

Women: delve deep into your primal power, beyond the appearances, customs, and religions of this day. Delve into the Knowing you have always had, and always will, a Knowing that no religion can ever encompass, and that no culture can ever define. Delve deep into your belly and the brain that lies there: the primal brain, your original voice, the voice that will never betray you and will always lead you to the truth of love in action, the being of joy, and the peace that passes all understanding.

This is your time. Seize it, open the wounds, leave the justifications and layers of fear, dust, and excuses that you use to cover the layers of yourself that you KNOW lie hidden, and that you have bartered away for a false peace to placate the masculine in, and around you. By doing this, you will be serving and loving the masculine in your life, truly loving them in the deepest way possible.

Womb work is designed for you to grow and bloom this holy place within, into full manifestation. With the resurrection of the womb comes the resurrection of man. Man will find a new identity that is his timeless, primordial identity, his true identity, when he comes into harmony with the clear and activated womb.

The Womb is the gateway from where we all come, and where we return to. To realize this takes the deepest surrender, to that which lies beyond the mind and reason. In the womb, you cannot KNOW what is happening as it is happening; you simply have to allow, embrace, and trust its feminine voice.

Remember the love as and when you can through the journey. It is only one, small shift of the mind away.

Anaiya's heart's desire has always been the possibility of Sacred Union. Her 12 years of teaching Kundalini Yoga, and being a Teacher Trainer gave her the ancient knowledge & direct experience of the energetic system and the deep understanding of human experience and its blindspots. After spending time with enlightened teachers Gangaji and Eli she saw the yearning within her own heart was universal. By merging these powerful teachings of Shakti and Bhakti, life force and love, with the wisdom and power of the womb and light from Padma Aon, she has been living the journey of Sacred Union with her Beloved husband. Anaiya teaches from feminine heart centred presence, allied with her infectious enthusiasm to inspire others to live their lives as love embodied.

She is a published author with her book Open the Heart with Kundalini Yoga ( Harper Collins 02) as well as Womb Wisdom (Inner Traditions 2010) and has also been a regular contributor to magazines and newspapers such as Kindred Spirit, Yoga Journal, The Mail on Sunday, The Guardian, The Telegraph amongst others.

anaiyaaon@gmail.com



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