We all experience a point in our life where we feel the need to lose weight, but the only issue is that you need to do it fast! The rationale behind it is simple; when you find fast ways of burning your extra calories, you are able to move towards a healthy life faster. However, this can only happen if you choose the right exercise. Well, if you are questioning yourself that whats the best cardio for weight loss, this article is your way to go. We present you with five most easy, fun loving exercises that will burn your calories faster:

  1. Racquetball: the amount of calorie burn for this sport might be more or less the same as tennis or other such sports. However, the specialty of racquetball is that it depends on the intensity and passion a person is playing with, almost the same game for same time frame and played by the same person would have different results of calorie burn if one is playing on medium and the other one is playing on a consistent pace. A 30 min game of racquetball can burn 238 calories for a person who weigh 150lb. the more your weight is, the more you would burn in less time.
  2. Tennis: playing tennis can be helpful in a number of ways, the reason behind it is the large number of variety in which you can play. For example, you can start off by playing with a partner, then move to singles. Apart from that, you can use one ball so that it’s more effort on your part. Additionally, you can also use a tennis trainer tool to play rigorously. If you are overweight, you will burn more calories than someone with normal weight. On an average, a person who weighs 150 lb, and plays for one hour, would burn 288 calories in double and 414 in single player tennis.
  3. Sprint Interval Training: this training is known as one of the best cardio for losing weight. The process of sprint interval training comprises of a 5minutes time span for warm up, followed by 10-12 exercises that are mostly intense while some are lighter to balance it out, and then the session ends with a 5 min time span to rest down. The exercises are intense but the part that makes it easy is less time and more calorie burn. In fact, this exercise burns more calorie than most of them.
  4. Lap Swimming: swimming is the most relaxing yet effective activities of all times. When you go for a swim, you can release all your tension. Plus, if you do it properly, like doing laps, i.e. lap swimming; it will help you burn more calories than usual. However, speed is an important factor as well. A one hour long session of swimming for a 180lb person would burn 817 calories if you swim faster and 572 if you swim slower.
  5. Weight Training: this is one of those exercises for which you need to go step by step. When you first go to the gym, do your warm up and then start off with lighter weights. Once you get in practice, your trainer at the gym can set your routine according to your body type. Weight training allows you to use all your energy and so eventually your calories are burnt to a large extent. This is also better because it keeps you on track. On average, you burn around 266 calories per hour if you weigh 185 lb.

Breathing is something that we usually don’t think about, it is natural process and people rarely ask themselves are they breathing properly or not. Most of us just assume that we do. Now, the truths is that we might be breathing too deeply, or just taking too shallow breaths, either way it is not a bad idea to pay attention to the way we breathe for time to time since there are certain situations in life when our breathing can be crucial for resolving a health issue.

Using breathing to battle anxiety

There are different levels of anxiety, for some it occurs periodically and is triggered by a particularly stressful situation. For others it is more constant and can be quite debilitating to a point where it disrupts their everyday life. One of the main symptoms of anxiety, apart from rapid heartbeat and chest pains, is shallow breathing. This particular symptom can also be associated with panic attacks which are usually preceded by a high level of anxiety.

Now in order to help your body get out of this uncomfortable state, it is very important to learn to control your breathing and to use it as tool to overcome the feelings of discomfort. By taking control of your breathing you will be able to keep your anxiety at bay which will have an overall positive effect on your quality of life.

Now let’s see how we can learn to control our breathing.

Be mindful

In this case mindfulness means being observant of the changes in our breathing pattern. So as soon as your breathing starts to speed up and your begin taking shorter breaths you can asses that your anxiety is kicking in, and you can be ready to nip it in the bud.

Slow it down

Now that you are aware of the changes in your breathing it is time to take charge and start slowing it down. Slowly start taking control, make sure you take your time for each breath, around five seconds to inhale, hold the air in for two and then another five to exhale. Counting in your head is also a great way to distract your mind from whatever is causing your anxiety. So slowly inhale and exhale, repeat this pattern until you heart rate slows down and gets back to normal.

Long term management

If you are fighting anxiety on  a daily basis your body might have gotten used to taking shallow short breaths, and this is something that you will need time to correct. In this case you need to fight the cause not the symptom. Include yoga or meditation in your everyday life. Both of these focus on breathing exercise and will help your body remember the proper breathing regiment. In addition you will also be able to learn how to steady your mind which can do wonders for your anxiety.

Other breathing issues you should be aware of

While breathing control exercise can do wonders for anxiety and the shallow rapid breathing associated with it. There are other breathing disorders that require additional help to control. One of them is sleep apnea, is a common disorder in which breathing repeatedly stops for 10 seconds or more during sleep.

This deprives our body and brain of oxygen and can cause people to awake briefly several times during the night resulting in some cases in chronic fatigue. There are numerous possible causes of sleep apnea, but what matters is that people suffering from this disorder get help straight away since long term health consequences might be severe.

This article has shown you how important breathing actually is, and that we should not take it for granted. Being able to take long deep breaths and sleep through the night is a luxury, one we should not take for granted.