Listen to your heart

If you’re like me when you’re recovering your fitness after a lay off, whether from injury or through choice, you get frustrated that you aren’t able to run as quickly, or as far, as you used to.

As a result of the frustration, you can push yourself a bit harder to recover your lost fitness quicker, but this rarely works, and dramatically increases the likelihood of injuring yourself again.

The heart rate monitor is one of the best inventions when it comes to the above scenario, because our hearts tell us exactly whether we’re overdoing it, taking it unnecessarily easy or putting in the right amount of effort.

Maintaining consistent effort, which means our hearts working within a set zone of beats per minute, is far better than maintaining consistent speed, which our brains will often favour.

We think that our brains are the ultimate source of our intelligence, but how often do we have a gut feeling or do we know in our heart of hearts or feel something in our bones?

Listening to your heart when you’re trying to improve your fitness is the smart way to do it.

Where else in your life might listening to you heart lead to a more effective way of living?