Moving With Purpose: The Power of Physical Activity
No doubt about it, modern-day living has made our lives way easier. Technology and modern conveniences are life-changing in some ways (how easy is it to ask Alexa to put on our favorite music or to push a button to raise or lower our car windows?). The down-side to all of this is that as a society we have become much more sedentary. Think about how much time is spent in front of a computer (or other type of screen) in a day, whether it’s for work or down-time.
Let’s look at the numbers for a minute: The CDC (Center for Disease Control) recommends getting 150 minutes per week of moderate-intensity physical activity, such as brisk walking, doubles tennis, pushing a lawnmower on flat ground, water aerobics, or light biking. Alternatively, you could get 75 minutes of higher-intensity physical activities, like soccer, basketball, more vigorous biking, hiking, jogging, shoveling or heavier gardening tasks. Also recommended by the CDC is 2 days of muscle-strengthening activities per week, all muscle groups. This could be in the form of weights, resistance bands, yoga, push ups/sit ups, heavier gardening, or other functional tasks that use weighted objects.
The benefits to moving your body and getting exercise are bountiful. In the short-term, we experience improved thinking and attention, we may be in a better mood after, it can decrease our anxiety, and we will sleep better at night. In the long-term, we can lower our risk of depression, dementia, and some forms of cancer. We can improve our balance and coordination, lessening our risk of falls as we age. We can lower our risk for heart disease, stroke, and type-2 diabetes. We can improve our bone density. We can manage our weight. So much good stuff.
Exercise can be so much more than “going to the gym”. This is where the curiosity and creativity come into play, because you get to design your own “Movement Diet” each and every day. You get to choose how you want to structure your movement to make it the most nourishing and what “nutrients” you want to put into your movement. Exercise can also be movement that we “have to do” in our day to be functional, like vacuuming, shoveling, climbing stairs…it’s just a lot less fun!
There are probably so many aspects of your day that you absent-mindedly take part in daily. Is it possible to become more mindful in how you approach these activities, through the lens of physical activity? When you are at your workplace, at home, with your family or friends, when you are in your car or at your desk…these are all opportunities to add various types of movement to stretch your muscles, challenge your joints, and bear weight through your bones.
Here are some simple ways to increase physical activity into your day (some that are a little less obvious):
Walk with a friend before work, or walk to work if you can, get off the train (depending where you live) one stop early and walk the rest of the way, walk at lunch, take the stairs.
When working in the kitchen, make more of your meals from scratch to give your hands, fingers, and entire upper extremities more opportunities to work on coordination and muscle building.
Don’t just sit in chairs. Sit on the floor, on surfaces of varying heights, on exercise balls, meditation cushions. Doing so will challenge your muscles and joints in ways that you don’t when sitting at a standard chair or standing.
Play! Do more of the movement that you love! Dancing, playing sports, gardening, yard work, yoga, tai chi, playing with your children or pets on the floor.
If you’re at a computer for work all day, vary your posture and positioning throughout the day. Sit, alter your sitting, cross your leg, cross your other leg, sit at various heights, stand, rotate, twist, bend, stretch, walk to the bathroom/kitchen/water fountain…you get the idea…
Here are the top 3 take-aways I hope you get from reading this:
Something is better than nothing! All forms of movement are beneficial.
The next position is the best position. Staying in the same position for too long puts you at greater risk for injury.
Move your body in the ways that are most meaningful to you and keep on moving!
For me, I love soccer, yoga, hiking, walking with friends, my sit/stand desk, sitting on the floor in front of the wood stove, and I’m definitely fidgety throughout the day! How about you? What does your “Movement Diet” look like? What is your favorite type of exercise/movement?
