Fitting Physical Activities into Your Busy Life
There are many ways we can fit physical activities into our busy schedules, and it’s important to recognize these ways and put them into practice.
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For those of us who wear many busy hats, exercising is usually a hassle. Sometimes, it’s not about working out to lose weight or build muscles, but just working out to keep fit. It can be difficult, but it’s not impossible. There are many ways we can fit physical activities into our busy schedules, and it’s important to recognize these ways and put them into practice.
Physical activities are necessary for several reasons, even for those who aren’t looking to lose weight. They:
help to improve our brain and heart health,
help us stay alert and alive,
strengthen our muscles and bones,
help us sleep better,
improve our overall health,
etc.
Hence, the need to get them into our daily schedule no matter how busy we are. Here are ten practical ways you can fit physical activities into your workday.
1. Take a lunch walk. Instead of using all of your lunch break to eat, you can split that time into two. Eat for half and take a walk before resuming work again. Depending on how long your lunch breaks are, you can walk for as long as 30 minutes or as little as 10-15 minutes. Remember to dress for the weather when talking your walks.
2. Opt to stand during meetings. If you have numerous meetings everyday like I do, you can choose to stand during your meetings. If your meetings are virtual without options to attend physically. You can stand right there in your office and pace back and forth in short distances around your desk. It may seem like nothing, but it makes a difference. As they say, little drops of water make a large ocean.
3. Employ the parking trick. One method that really helps to get the physical activity in for busy people is parking as far away as possible from your office in the mornings. Be sure to arrive early enough to cover for your walk times. The advantage of doing this is that you get to walk in the morning and in the evening. I can already imagine your heart telling you “thank you” for doing this.
4. Get active with the kids. Take your kids or neighbor’s kids to the park and get as excited as they are and play. Run in the field with them, play catch, kick balls – do whatever will get your heart racing and your skin breaking with sweat. When you retire for home, you’ll be grateful that you did.
5. Ride instead of drive. If you have a bike and it is feasible to ride to work, choose to ride instead of drive. You’ll gain the advantage of working out several muscle parts as you do. You may need to leave for work a little earlier than usual, so consider adjusting your time if you choose to do this.
6. Join dance classes for fun. You can do this with a spouse or a friend; and it can be something regular that you can sign up for or can be casual times spent in the local restaurant or pub where a band plays regularly. It can be for weight loss or not, just shake it up.
7. Ditch the elevator. Walk the stairs instead. As with pacing around your office desk, this may seem like nothing, but your bones and muscles will be grateful.
8. Spend evening family times walking. Spending family time outside on a walk are such precious moments. Sometimes you’re so engrossed in talking about and appreciating the natural scenic view that you do not realize how much you’ve walked. Again, be sure to dress appropriately for the weather.
9. Participate in volunteering activities that involve movement. Volunteering in food drives, clean up activity, church or community sports events, medical outreach, etc. can be opportunities to get some physical exercises into our days. You’ll not realize how much physical activity you put in as you give back to your community.
10. Plan activity into family or personal vacations. I know your idea of a vacation looks something like this: being in a lovely 5-star hotel with premium room service, lounging on the hot beach in bikinis or shorts, sunglasses over your eyes, being served cocktails or mocktails and just having the time of your life. Even in this, you can fit some physical activities in, such as: using the hotel’s gym facilities to do some workout, spending some time swimming, going bike riding, etc. If you’re the one who enjoys vacationing in the woods, maybe you’d like to add in canoeing, hiking, mountain biking, etc. as part of your vacation.
I hope you try out some of these.
