Like many others, one of my values is to be an active person. I grew up on a farm. My mother would kick us out of the house from at least after lunch till supper. I didn’t have to work activity into everyday life, or at least it didn’t seem like work. In fact, it was play!
During summers, we would ride our bikes, play with frogs, build forts, and play pretend all afternoon. As we got older, we continued some of these activities but would also travel further into the river to explore or toss a ball around.
What Changed
In junior high, my sister got her very own horse. I wasn’t so obsessed with horses and didn’t particularly enjoy riding behind a saddle. Riding required supervision and setup, not to mention that these things needed to eat and drink and have their poop cleaned up. It was not my thing, it was my sister’s.
It’s not something I realized at the time but my sister and I were creative together and would explore together. When I lost the social aspect of being outdoors my life radically shifted toward sedentary activities such as music and computer programming. I shifted into the technical world which has its own value. I would play my saxophone long past it hurting.
As a college student my daily activity increased because I had to walk everywhere with heavy books. Though it really wasn’t the same.
How it is now
My overall activity level has been very low. Roughly three to four years ago I started a weekly Reformer Pilates class that is the most impressive my workout routine has ever been. At the time I lived in an apartment complex and had one flight of stairs to deal with twice a day but that’s the most activity that I got 95% of the time.
A year and a half ago I bought a house. The house is small but it does still require a lot of irregular work. Home-ownership adds quite a bit of activity. When I would mow my lawn with my Fitbit, it would declare that I’d done 9 staircases! My small yard is sloped.
Random Activity vs. Structured Activity
Structured exercise is important. I’m especially prone to injuries and heat exhaustion. Several of my medications increase my exercise intolerance further. For me, the structured activity with trainer’s feedback and a small group was the best place to start.
After a car accident, the muscles in the right side of my body pull tight and make my movements unbalanced. That’s where the feedback comes in. Also, the small group made me want to be in class every time because these people became my friends.
I knew that being more active really meant I needed to be able to get up and go the second the thought crossed my mind which required a bit of alterations in my life. My wardrobe was one. I needed more lounge-wear that was appropriate to walk, bike, or do yoga in and was also comfortable so I would want to spend my downtime wearing.
When was it time to work activity into everyday life?
This was a mental change for me. I’m a thinker so when I have downtime my first thought is “I should research…” or I will work on plans and to-do lists. It’s definitely a “measure twice, cut once” type of mindset and that efficiency makes the do part, very quick.
At work I’ve been trying to remember to get up and move when a task is completed instead of staying at my desk or moving straight to the next computer task. My work is somewhat seasonal so some weeks there’s a lot of walking but most of the time it’s a lot of computer work.
However, it doesn’t have to be. The ratio will likely always be a bit heavier on computer tasks but there are a lot of things I can do to shift my work towards getting up more frequently. I sat down at the beginning of the year to write out some generic tasks that I could do that would get me out on the plant floor more often during work, so I won’t have to plan and can skip right to doing it.
At home, this has looked more like getting up to put away something when it’s just one thing, not waiting until there’s a pile. I still get caught up in things and forget to follow through until there’s a pile but this is the second mental hiccup. It really doesn’t make sense why we watch television while surfing the net and running a video chat but I do it. A lot. So, I’m working to do only one activity at a time. It makes a difference.
I’ve also reorganized my living room to reduce the odds of turning to television when I’m bored. Check out my article on rearranging my living room to discourage watching television.
Increasing from moving to being active
This fall, now that the humidity isn’t a big factor, I’ve been out walking in the park across the street. I see so many people walking their dogs and it helps to remind me that I need to get out there too. So with comfortable clothes and a visual reminder I can get outside in time to get a nice walk in before sundown.
Weather is a notable issue for me. Primarily, humidity is a significant migraine trigger so there will be days, possibly weeks, that I won’t be able to walk outside much. Also, there are no lights in the park so as the sun goes down sooner, I will have to get out earlier or stay on the street. Planning what to wear is more important in the winter as wind chill can be a bigger factor than temperature or precipitation.
Another thing that I’ve been doing is when I crave junk food or drinks, I walk to the grocery store to go buy the items. I no longer stock them in the house. This works fairly well, except I still have delivery…too much.
I’ve also added squeegeeing my shower after every use. This helps reduce how many times I need to scrub the shower but also works more activity in regularly. It’s not for everyone but it works for me. This tip, I believe, was from Joshua Fields Millburn of The Minimalists.
Setbacks
I mentioned how injury can be an issue when starting out. After returning to Pilates and walking every day for half a week, I rolled my ankle. My longer than normal walk on Sunday contributed. I think I stepped down pretty straight but I went straight down on my butt instantly.
At first it seemed as if falling on my butt avoided putting all that pressure down on my ankle but until after my Pilates class there was a tight spot above my ankle. I continued my chores and iced that evening just in case. Still it wasn’t stable for about 3 days. Then later in the week I did my normal walk and it felt pretty tight.
The couple of days off was not only a physical setback but also a mental setback. It takes longer than half a week to set a routine and I really needed to be able to do the activity every day. If I have a similar injury again, I think I’d go down the block and back just to keep the routine going.
You can’t fool yourself
I’ve heard the advice to start going to a gym regularly you tell yourself you just have to step in the building. I personally haven’t found this to be successful because I’m still expecting myself to actually workout. It’s worked for some and I feel it’s more likely to work if you don’t have that much of an obstacle. Saying “I’m going to move to my yoga mat and do some easy poses in my PJs” is a lot easier than “I’m going to wake up 2 hours earlier, go to the gym, workout for 40 minutes, shower, change, and drive to work”.
Let’s be realistic. Sometimes you need a radical change to jump start a new routine, but if it doesn’t quickly change to something you want to do then it’s not sustainable. I work very early already, it’s very difficult to shift my schedule further forward (others can). For me, this hasn’t worked.
Walking is a great way to work activity into everyday life
Anyone who has nerve problems will understand how difficult mornings can be. Everything amplifies at night and lack of sleep makes it painful or hard to move in the morning. It’s definitely a good idea to move in the morning, the sooner you do it the better. However, I’ve found the better strategy is to move in the evening…outside.
Walking is great for your nervous system and walking in the evening can help prepare your body for sleep. In the past, I’d restored function to my nervous system by drinking 96 ounces of water ad walking 5 km every day. It took about six months. Walking is gentle and doesn’t wake you up like some workouts can.
How I plan to work more activity into everyday life…
Possible future activity increase:
- Bike to shopping centers (there are a few that are pretty much on bike paths)
- Bike to the grocery store weekly
- Raking leaves/shoveling snow/mowing lawn
- Gardening
- Regular dusting/sweeping (alternate days)
- Morning and evening stretching
- Dance party at home
- Travel out somewhere to sketch/photos for water coloring
- Walk to the grocery store to get a meal rather than ordering delivery
- Go out in the community to look for ways to serve/contribute
- Take small loads of recycling to the community recycling by bike/walking
- Doing own car service work
The greatest takeaway is that you have to trade some time to make this happen, so make the decision what to trade and try to combine activities wherever possible. For me, I’m trading television time and trying to make the activity enticing.
Comment below if you found this article useful. I’d love to hear from you. How do you work activity into your life?