This is a true belief that unfortunately most people don’t yet believe: All types and any duration of movement you can fit into your day COUNTSs toward revitalization, fueling joy, supporting good health and restoring your sense of yourself.
Use these five strategies to discover how you can find time for physical movement on even the most crazy busy, over scheduled day:
- Stop “shoulding” on yourself
Toss out old definitions about you should work out. Many people think they have to work hard for 40 minutes for their workout to “count.” Not true! Exercise of any kind – including walking, yoga and strolling around town – adds up over the course of a day. If you don’t like intense exercise that makes you breath hard and sweat – you are not alone. Many others feel the same way..
- Consider movement as an elixir of life and nurture yourself with it.
The benefits from moving our bodies constitute an elixir of life. But it’s important to do it in ways that feel good to you and that work with your life. So give yourself permission to renew yourself when you know you need it by simply taking a five minute walk. With this mindset, you’ll be amazed that when you walk for even a short period of time you feel like you’ve just given yourself a gift of relaxation, centering, and less stress – you’ll return and be better than you were before.
- When life throws you a curveball, shrink your goals.
If you had made plans to workout for 30 minutes, but “stuff happens” and you only have 15minutes, do it anyway. It’s not about hitting a specific time target, it’s actually about learning how to be active on a consistent basis. Even one minute of movement in an otherwise busy day reminds you of your intentions and builds consistency.
- Claim opportunities to move.
Opportunities to move are the natural spaces in your life. Literally hundreds of opportunities to move – one minute, three minutes, five minutes, ten minutes – exist in everyone’s days. If you work at a computer, try to get up 1-2 times per day to just move a little. Take the stairs, walk around your office, walk to mail a letter. This strategy make accumulating movement easy and you’ll be amazed by the increased energy you’ll feel from just moving even a minute.
- Make it playful.
Movement is a world of infinite possibilities! Walk to catch up with your friend. Do the “couple’s cruise” with your sweetie. Try backyard or park games like croquet, badminton, basketball, pickleball, catch or just turn up the music and dance.