So many of us have been working from home for almost one full year now. Working from home often leads to less walking; it’s more challenging to keep moving throughout the whole day. We no longer have to walk to the public transportation, or from our parking spot to the office. It’s easy to sit in the same room, or at least on the same floor of our home all day long, barely moving more than 100 steps! Those of us in lockdown situations aren’t able to go to the mall, and many people aren’t comfortable grocery shopping anymore; we’re doing it all online. This reduced movement is scary for our health!
Reduced movement throughout the day is a problem. If you’ve been able to stick to your exercise routine, that’s fantastic! However, it’s still important to keep moving throughout the whole day, and not just during your workout time. I too, have found constant daily movement to be tougher lately, but here’s how I do it.
Try these 3 Tips to Keep Moving all Day Long
1. Add exercise variety into your day.
Write down your favourite 10 exercise moves. If you’re having trouble coming up with 10 exercises, checkout my youtube channel, I’ve posted over 250 exercises here, with the instructions. Pick a different exercise every day of the week and make it your mission to perform 50-100 reps of the selected exercise before 5pm. Be sure to chunk out the reps into sets that you can complete throughout the morning and afternoon, as performing 100 reps of any move without a brake, can overstrain your body. Switching up the exercise daily is important to avoid repetitive overuse of one muscle group. You want to work your whole body, your arms, legs and core, not just the same body part again and again. To get you started, here’s one of my favourite exercises that you don’t need any equipment for:
2. Turn down your house temperature.
A cold dwelling will automatically encourage you to move a little more. If you don’t believe me, try dropping your house temperature by 5 degrees. Reduced temperatures cause me to either get up from my desk and move around to get my blood flowing, or to start automatically fidgeting more to stay warm. Research shows that cooler temperatures cause the body to work harder and burn more calories in order to stay warm. This tip also has the benefit of saving you a little on your heating bills.
3. Track your Progress.
If you’re not measuring your activity level, you have no idea what your starting point is. This makes it almost impossible to increase your movement. I’m a firm believer in activity trackers. Those of you who know me, know that I love my Fitbit. Tracking my steps keeps me moving more all day long. Over the 4 years that I’ve been wearing my Fitbit daily, I’ve managed to increase my daily activity by 30%! If you don’t want to wear an activity tracker, set your phone alarm to go off hourly. When your alarm goes off, take 2-3 minutes to march on the spot or do some jumping jacks. It’s important to just get your body moving every hour. This 15 minutes of additional activity can make a world of difference to your energy levels, attention span, mental health and even your physique!
To Sum it up…3 Tips to Keep Moving Constantly
Working from home can be beneficial in some ways, but it’s leading to so many of us moving much less throughout our workdays. This reduced movement adds a strain to our physical and mental health. Keep moving more throughout your workdays by adding some variety into your daily activity routine. Perform a different exercise move throughout each day to keep you motivated. Try turning down your house temperature to get you automatically moving and fidgeting more. Use an activity tracker or set your phone alarm to go off hourly, to remind yourself to get up and move around. What are you doing throughout the workday to keep moving more up while working from home?
Trackbacks/Pingbacks