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iFit Halloween Workout Playlists!

It’s that time of year! Haunted houses, pumpkin patches, and corn mazes are in full swing. Your Netflix queue is filled with horror movies, and your cupboards are stocked with a mass of candy in expectation of little trick-or-treaters. But what about your workout? Get completely immersed in the Halloween spirit by adding spooky serenades to your daily sweat session!

On our brand new iFit Spotify station, we’ve curated the best haunting tunes to motivate you to keep going strong. We’ve even divided them up by mood and beats per minute (BPM) to make five categories, depending on your personal workout type preference. So change into your favorite black-and-orange workout clothes, put your headphones on, and feel the terrifying beat!

Cardio

Get your vampire blood pumping with this compilation of songs at 120–140 BPM. On this iFit Halloween Cardio playlist, we’ve included everything from Kesha to The Black Keys to Blue Oyster Cult to mix it up for a creepy cardio session! Try running in these 5 Ghost Towns in a Google Maps™ workout to switch things up!

HIIT

High-Intensity Interval Training, or HIIT, is a popular cardio workout, loved by our expert iFit trainers. For those of you who are unfamiliar, you alternate intense anaerobic exercise with less intense recovery periods. HIIT workouts have been proven to improve athletic capacity, as well as increasing glucose metabolism.

An easy way to follow a HIIT workout is to alternate the BPM of the songs you listen to. We’ve curated the iFit Halloween HIIT playlist to include songs that alternate between 115–120 BPM for your recovery periods, and 150–170 BPM for your intense anaerobic periods. Just follow the beat of the playlist, and you should get a great HIIT workout! Be sure to slow it down or speed it up, depending on your fitness level. And remember...you don’t have to complete the entire playlist. Just do what feels good to your body!

Strength Training

The iFit Halloween Strength Training collection is more about the mood, rather than the BPM, but it should be hair-raising enough to keep you pumping the iron!

Dance

It’s a right of passage for all true dancers to learn Thriller! And no Halloween mix would be complete without the epic David Bowie. Plus, we have a few remixes with a zumba beat on this iFit Halloween Dance mix!

Yoga

Yogis will attest to the benefits of relaxing nature sounds and gentle music while you’re stretching and bending. Try switching things up a bit with this eerie mood music. At about 60–100 BPMs, the songs on iFit Halloween Yoga playlist are mostly chill, but we included a few with a stronger beat for power flow sessions!

Look forward to more playlists in the future, and be sure to share your favorite songs and list by tagging #iFit on Instagram or Facebook!

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People Need People: The Positive Effects of Socializing

As human beings, we are social creatures by nature. Instinctively, we don’t like feeling alone, and our bodies and brains actually function better when we are surrounded by others. We are basically wired to be social. If you were to google “why humans need humans” or anything along those lines, you’ll find a plethora of articles explaining why social connections and friendships are vital to our health and well-being. Outside of our family units, when we have friends we can lean on, laugh with, cry with, and talk to, we are nourishing ourselves physically, mentally, and emotionally. We need that connectivity not only to survive, like this article suggests, but to thrive. Whether you’re someone who prefers to have just a few really close pals, or you’re a social butterfly with a lot of friends, at the end of the day, we need those relationships. Here are the top three reasons we need friendships in our lives! Friendships improve our health Research has shown that having strong social connections is vital to our health. For starters, it can reduce stress levels, ward off depression and suicide, lower the risk of dementia, heart disease, and cancer, as well as boost our immune system...and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. It’s also easier to exercise and live a healthier lifestyle when you have the support of friends and family. Friends extend our life expectancy Aside from improving our overall health, maintaining friendships can also add years to our lives—just like regular exercise, healthy eating habits, and not smoking. Multiple studies have found that people who have positive relationships with their family, friends, and community are happier and tend to live longer. Some studies have even gone as far to conclude that social belongingness is just as important as physical survival needs, such as food and shelter. Friends make life more fun This might not be a mind-blowing revelation, but friends bring an abundant amount of happiness to our lives. While I’m sure you can find enjoyment doing certain things solo, I’d argue that most things are more fun when you do it with someone else. There’s an unexplainable joy that comes from sharing experiences with people we care about. Studies have shown, including this one conducted back in 2011, that having meaningful social relationships affects our neurobiological endogenous opioid system (think endorphins), triggering the part of the brain that makes us feel good. Simply put, connecting and interacting with our friends gives us happy feelings. Ever caught up with an old friend, then felt really good afterwards? Those are your endorphins kicking in, telling you that what you just did is healthy for your emotional and physical health! So, no matter what stage of life you’re in, make it a priority to get out and do things with your friends. Whether it’s a quick phone call or grabbing lunch, keep your friends close and remember to have fun!