Exercise has immense benefits for our health. It helps to keep aches and pains at a bay and also keeps us away from a plethora of health diseases like diabetes, obesity and high blood pressure. Regular physical fitness routine helps to improve our generalized health. In today’s, stressful life exercise is a great way to curb emotional illness like depression and anxiety.
In spite of knowing all this, most of us are not committed to fitness. It is very true that modern life is extremely hectic but self-care is our responsibility. Here are a few tips that can make this work.
All physical activity counts as exercise
A fitness routine does not only involve hitting the gym or taking an hour-long aerobic session. Each and every physical activity that you so helps to burn the calories. Even little activities like stretching your legs or arms after an hour of sedentary work or going for a five-minute walk after every hour or two helps your body get active. The ultimate goal is to avoid being lazy and sitting in a single place for prolonged periods of time.
Simple ways to sneak in exercise
We can inculcate exercise and keep up our fitness routine into the busiest of work days by following the below mentioned:
- Warm up. Each morning when you wake up, devote five full minutes to stretching your arms and legs. Rotate your shoulder blades and do some basic neck exercises. Go from the top all the way to the toe. This will open up your body.
- Walk while brushing your teeth instead of standing in front of the mirror. Walk while you are talking on cell phone. This alone has made people manage 10000 steps a day.
- Dance. Put on some jazzy music early morning and swing to the tunes while you get ready for office. This is a perfect excuse to move your body as well as elevate your spirits for the day. Not only you but your family will move along with you.
- While commuting to your office, try to take the stairs instead of elevators each time you get an option. If you need to talk to a colleague who sits on another floor, walk up to him by stairs instead of taking the lift or calling them over the phone.
Can’t devote an hour to exercise?
There are many experts who talk about an entire regime which can be completed in 15-30 minutes. Yes, even Ashtanga yoga has a 15 minutes series. Just search the internet and you will be pleasantly surprised. Weekdays you can schedule these and on weekends you can devote a full hour or more to balance the routine.
On Desk Exercises
Most of us who have a desk job spend many hours sitting which can due to improper posture and continuous cause many health issues like Sciatica, slip disc, frozen shoulder or just make you pile on weight. So make sure you walk around every 20-30 min and take a break. Make sure your posture is correct, spine straight, shoulders square, head upright. If you are going to be sitting for long hours, make sure you take a footrest. Coming back to exercises on the desk, there are many like neck rotation, shoulder rotation, tricep dips, squats etc.
You can take reference from this video;
Invest in a fitness tracker
Buy a basic step-counter from a reliable brand or download an app if you don’t want to invest. This would be a motivating and fun method of keeping track of your daily physical activity. Since you are monitoring your activity, you automatically would be more aware of not being lazy. Invent reasons to walk the target number of steps, each day. This is a very easy way to keep your fitness routine and burn calories. Eventually, you feel start feeling more energetic and have better stamina.
Use weekends to the fullest
Even if you stay occupied all week long, weekends present themselves as the perfect opportunity to compensate for lack of a proper fitness routine during the weekdays. You could hit the gym on Saturdays and Sundays. Also, you can go enjoy a dance or aerobic session with your spouse. If you want something that involves the kids, go to a swimming class or cycling with them.
Buy a home work out equipment
Some basic exercise equipment like a set of dumbbells, pilates, an exercise ball and perhaps even a treadmill(though this occupies space) can be kept in a gym room in your apartment. This would serve as a good excuse to workout at home even when you are finding no time to visit the gym or fitness center on weekdays. At the beginning or the end of each day, you shall at least be able to do some sort of muscle strengthening and cardio right at the comfort and convenience of your home.
If you think about exercise as a fun and necessary activity. None of us is too busy to ignore our health.