Enhancing Awareness to Achieve Your Goals
It’s that time of year—decorations are packed away, we’ve indulged in the last of the sweets (or at least, that’s what I tell myself!), and we’re ready to welcome a better, brighter year. Usually, that includes some vague fitness goal—staying mobile, walking some steps each day, maybe trying a new fitness class.
Talking with Jason Cherry, the Fitness Director at Prairie City Landing, I started to think about fitness goals in a new light. After our conversation, I decided that 2026 will be a year of working out smarter. I may not need to increase my step count, but I can make those steps count.
How does one get better results with, perhaps, less effort? It’s all about building a strategic fitness plan.
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Three Types of Exercise
Jason thinks about fitness as a three-legged stool: you have your cardio or aerobic training, strength exercises, and wellness or mind-body practice. Each of these provides different benefits, and collectively, they create a more holistic and effective fitness program.
Most people are familiar with the heart health benefits that cardio exercises offer. We also know that strength training is crucial for maintaining bone density, regulating metabolism, enhancing balance, and improving muscular power.
Then there’s the third leg: a mind-body practice. “Most people instinctively feel like working out needs to feel really hard. They don’t give themselves permission to just relax. And that relaxation is when the magic happens,” Jason explained.
Activities such as tai chi, yoga, meditation, and stretching all fall into this third category. They help with recovery, flexibility, and reduce stress and mental fatigue.
A group of residents enjoys a simple seated stretch in the fitness center.
Importance of Rest
“When you’re resting, your body is actually doing a lot. It might feel like nothing, but your body is healing muscles that get little tears when you do strength exercises. This leads to strength gains. It’s rebalancing hormones, which helps with fat metabolism. It’s strengthening your immune system,” Jason said.
Excited to know that my body could do so much without me getting out of breath, I asked if mind-body was really just rest. Jason clarified that rest was important, especially if my body was sore or I felt run-down. “Listen to your body,” Jason urged, “It will guide you.”
Creating Awareness
Mind-body, though, is not just about doing nothing. It is about creating awareness through intentional practices. For example, in yoga and tai-chi, practitioners are taught to think about where their bodies are in space, how to move small muscles—or big muscles in small ways—to gain greater awareness of one’s body and its mechanisms.
These practices focus on balance, stretching, and coordination. By doing so, they can reduce stiffness and increase flexibility. When one is more flexible, they are less likely to fall or experience joint pain. In addition, stretching improves circulation, allowing nutrients to be delivered to your muscles more quickly.
In a yoga class, residents stretch their hamstrings.
Meditation
When people practice meditation or tai chi, they train their nervous systems to shift into “rest and digest” mode. In this state, all of that powerful healing and growth can happen more readily.
Moreover, in a state of rest, one enjoys mental and emotional benefits. Meditation and breathing exercises calm the body and lower cortisol levels (a stress hormone that can, among other things, increase fat storage).
A guided meditation class in the theater helps residents feel calm and restful.
Sleep is Foundational
Training one’s body to rest, such as by practicing meditation, can improve sleep, which is foundational to well-being.
“When someone tells me they are exercising and getting the right nutrition, but not seeing any of the benefits, I always ask them about sleep,” Jason said. “Out of 10,000 times I’ve asked about sleep, I’ve never met anyone who is getting enough. And rest is when all the magic happens.”
Diversity as Motivation
Not only does the third leg of the fitness stool offer many health benefits. It also gives practitioners a new and different type of exercise.
“It’s important that exercise becomes part of your lifestyle—something you want to do,” Jason explained. “And diversity is important, not just because different forms of exercise help your body in different ways, but because the novelty keeps you interested and curious, which helps you create a habit of exercise.”
Cynthia takes it outdoors to lead a meditation class in a different environment.
Why?
Why is all of this important? After all, I’m not trying to be an Olympic athlete or get six-pack abs.
“It’s about having agency. It’s being able to enjoy life, to stay mobile so you can do the things you want to do,” Jason stressed. “It’s about maintaining an independent lifestyle for as long as possible.”
“Exercise doesn’t always mean strenuous,” Jason reminded me. In fact, just like in life, the secret to success is finding the balance, and sometimes that means intentional rest.
Interested in trying a fitness class? We invite you to join! Call us at 916-545-1955, and we’ll share our schedule and get you signed up for a class of your choice.
Learn more about our Fitness program in our Signature Programs Guide.
