Article by Bianca Sengos, Founder and CEO of Rainbow Sounds
Mental fitness deserves the same consistent investment as physical fitness, if not more.
Your brain is one of the body’s most energy-demanding organs, consuming around 20% of the body’s energy at rest. Yet we often spend far more time training our bodies than deliberately training our attention and awareness.
Practices such as Pilates are powerful because they go beyond simply moving the body. Pilates asks us to pay attention to our breath, posture, alignment, control and the quality of each movement. This is mindful movement: bringing awareness to what the body is doing while it is doing it.
And that relationship between body and mind matters a lot when it comes to longevity.
Train the Body. Train the Mind.
Holistic health isn’t about choosing between physical and mental wellbeing. The two are complementary.
It’s also not enough for gyms and fit pros to say they are “going to stay in their own lane.”
What lane is that? Is it one where we only focus on the physical body and leave the mental side of our customers’ overall wellbeing to someone else?
Or is it time to upskill and explore this new holistic lane before your customers start heading there themselves?
If we invest time each week strengthening our bodies, we should also consider how we are strengthening the mental skills that help us navigate everyday life: attention, awareness, emotional regulation and resilience.
Just as physical fitness develops through repetition, mental fitness can be practised.
I dare any gym or fit pro to send a quick message to their customers and ask who would be interested in a few new mindfulness or mental resilience classes or gatherings.
It costs very little to walk around the gym floor and talk to your customers. You might be surprised by what they are looking for.
While change can be uncomfortable, it isn’t necessarily bad for you. The outcome could open up new doors, bring more happiness, support a greater sense of calm, help people feel more at ease or simply light up new neural pathways.
That’s exciting!
Every time we consciously bring our attention back to the present, we are training awareness. Every time we create a small space between a stimulus and our response, we practise the ability to pause and respond rather than automatically react.
Over time, these seemingly small practices can become part of how we operate.
Building Your “Awareness Muscle”
One of the most valuable aspects of mental fitness is developing greater awareness of our own thinking. In psychology, metacognition refers to our ability to think about and monitor our own thinking.
Instead of simply experiencing a thought, we begin to recognise:
I’m having this thought.
My attention has wandered.
I’m becoming frustrated.
I’m reacting rather than responding.
That distinction is powerful. It is a higher level of conscious awareness that comes from becoming more present to our own thoughts and responses.
Awareness gives us an opportunity to observe our thoughts before automatically acting on them. We may not be able to control every thought that appears, but we can become better at noticing our mental patterns and choosing what happens next.
Think of this capacity as an “awareness muscle.”
The more deliberately we practise noticing, pausing and redirecting our attention, the more familiar the process becomes.
This is one of the ways mindfulness and meditation can complement physical practices such as Pilates. The body learns through repetition, and so does the mind.
Enter a New Lane: Sounding Practices Could Help
For many people, simply being told to “focus” or “clear your mind” isn’t particularly helpful.
This is where a sound therapy bowl can become a practical tool for mindfulness practice.
Rather than asking the mind to focus on nothing, sound gives it something specific to attend to.
Softly strike the bowl and listen.
Slowly play the bowl and take deep breaths, breathing in for 8 counts and out for 8.
Feel the vibration.
Follow the sound as it rises, resonates and eventually fades.
The acoustic vibrations travel as sound waves that we hear and, depending on their intensity and proximity, may also experience physically as vibration. This creates a tangible sensory anchor for attention.
When your mind wanders, notice it.
Then return to the sound.
Listen. Wander. Notice. Return.
That simple cycle is itself a form of mental training.
The goal isn’t to become someone who never gets distracted, stressed or emotionally activated. Resilience is not the absence of difficult experiences. It is developing a greater capacity to recognise what is happening internally and respond to it with awareness.
Fitness for the Whole Person
Perhaps we need to expand what we mean when we say we are “working on ourselves.”
A strong body is valuable. So is a mind that has practised attention, awareness, reflection and the ability to pause.
SonicSounds classes, Pilates, yoga and other forms of mindful movement can train us to connect awareness with the body. Meditation can train us to observe attention and thought. A sound therapy bowl can provide a simple sensory anchor that helps make that practice more accessible.
Together, they represent a more holistic approach to wellbeing: training the body while also training the mind that lives within it.
So, if you invest in your physical fitness, consider making an equal commitment to your mental fitness.
Move your body.
Train your attention.
Practise the pause.
Strengthen your awareness.
Because becoming the best version of yourself isn’t simply about what your body can do. It is also about developing the awareness to recognise how you think, how you respond and, ultimately, how you choose to live and show up in the world.
