Woman performing HIIT outside

Can HIIT Improve Mental Health?

High intensity interval training (or HIIT for short) has fast become one of the most common forms of exercise on the planet. Used by athletes and regular gym goers alike, it has been applauded for its ability to improve health and fitness in an extremely short amount of time. But did you know it can

Figure skating

It’s Your Moment. Find Out How You Can Keep From Choking Under Pressure.

Dayton Kelly This article was adapted from a combination of speeches given at the European Sports Science Conference 2018, most notably Denise Hill (SWANSEA UNIVERSITY, UK), Christopher Mesagno (FEDERATION UNIVERSITY, AUSTRALIA), and Juergen Beckmann (TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY MUNICH, GERMANY) Life and sport are filled with moments of pressure; everyone has experienced instances when the failure to

Reducing-Anxiety

Three Types of Exercise for Reducing Anxiety

Most of us have experienced anxiety at one time or another. Whether it be jitters about starting a new job, increased heart rate before a big presentation or exam, or general uneasiness and nerves when the clock strikes 5 pm on a Sunday and the weekend comes to a close. While these everyday instances of

downhill skier

4 Ways to Overcome Sports Performance Anxiety

Alyssa Bialowas Competition anxiety is common in athletes, especially if they struggle to deliver performance. It’s the feeling of stress and pressure right before a competition that can be harmful to athletes and if it’s bad enough, can even lead to an athlete dropping out of a competition altogether. With the high amount of pressure

Everyday Tips To Be More Mindful

Gillian White – MSc, PhD (Candidate), University of Toronto Mindfulness Part II. Everyday tips to be more mindful. As I discussed in the previous article, Mindfulness Part I, the pursuit and practice of mindfulness has a wide variety of benefits relating to your health, happiness, and productivity. In this day and age, where your brain

butterfly stroke swimming

Competitive-anxiety & Its Effect On Heart Rate In Swimmers

By Alyssa Bialowas Competition has always been a natural driver in sport. Many athletes face a significant amount of pressure to win and perform their best, with consequences if they drop the ball. Swimming is an all-year round competitive sport that takes a lot of training and discipline. Indoor pools allow athletes to train and

Sweat

How Sweat Helps You Keep Your Cool

Gillian White   BSc, MSc, PhD Candidate Department of Exercise Sciences, University of Toronto How Sweat Helps You Keep Your Cool As summer winds down and we are faced with the grim reality of fall, stress levels can increase as we settle back into the grind. While everyone has an individual motivation for why they

Brain Inflammation and Exercise

Exercise and Brain Inflammation

Julia Basso – PhD The post I wrote last week talked about the exciting connection between exercise and the immune system.  I specifically focused on one immune factor, known as interleukin-6 (IL-6), that not only serves immune functions but also acts to enhance metabolic processes, like burning fats and sugars.  Because exercise affects our immune factors,

Woman doing yoga

3 Reasons You Should Hit The Yoga Mat

Gillian White – MSc., University of Toronto, Department of Exercise Sciences Recently, I wrote a couple of articles about the mindfulness craze that we seem to be experiencing in our society these days. In Part II of the Mindfulness series, I gave a few ways to incorporate mindfulness into your life. To anyone who practices

Exercise And PMS

Catherine O’Brien Exercise and PMS: A case for exercising during menstruation To exercise or to rest? That is the question many women face once a month when they get their period. The fatigue, achiness and cramping can be enough to make you hit the snooze button or ditch your post work cardio session. Premenstrual syndrome

Salt Rooms

Loosening Up Your Cough With Salt Rooms

Dayton Kelly Salt Rooms Alternative health therapies have been rapidly growing in popularity in the western world. With the emergence of these novel, non-traditional remedies, it becomes difficult to know which of these are evidence-based approaches to medicine and which are not. New to the medicinal market is Halotherapy, a salt based therapy more commonly

The Stages Of A Woman’s Sleep Life: Menstruation and Menopause

Adriane Cook B.S. Kinesiology, Michigan State University www.balancewithme.com Is it true that men tend to sleep better than woman? Researchers believe “Sex differences in sleep begin at a very early age and women report poorer sleep quality and have higher risk for insomnia than do men.” (Sleep and Women’s Health, National Center for Biotechnology Information,