Hi there,
Ever wondered why a good workout leaves you feeling fantastic?
It turns out exercise can be a mood booster. Think of exercise like a natural mood enhancer.
When you move your body, your brain releases these feeling-good chemicals.
Additionally, exercising increases your brain’s cognitive abilities, protecting it from aging issues like dementia or memory loss.
So, I can’t emphasize this enough that getting moving isn’t just about staying fit; it has a more important purpose which is to keep your mind in top-notch condition.
There are many research projects out there that shows exercise and body movement is an effective treatment for depression.
If you want to improve your mood and sustain your high performance, you have no option but to include regular exercise and body movement sessions in your schedule.
This is not about achieving an arbitrary body weight or body size; it’s all about moving and stretching your muscles and having an increased heart rate for some time.
This can be running, cycling, swimming, going to the gym, doing yoga, dancing, etc.
Top 5 Ways to Integrate Body Movement & Exercise into a Busy Life
1. Setting Reasonable Goals
Setting goals isn’t about becoming a fitness guru overnight.
Se relaxed and easy-to-achieve goals for yourself – it won’t last if you don’t enjoy the journey.
2. Benefiting from a Buddy System
Having a workout buddy makes it more enjoyable compared to flying solo.
3. Creating a Positive Exercise Space
Whether it’s your room or a nearby park, it has to give you good vibes.
4. Celebrating Little Wins
To sustain a habit, it’s important to be nice to yourself when you miss hitting your target and celebrate every small victory like it’s a big deal.
Make sure you don’t use unhealthy habits as a reward for sustaining healthy habits.
It’s a very confusing strategy to reward yourself with a lot of ice cream on the weekend (aka. unhealthy habit) after running for 20 minutes every day for a week (aka. healthy habit).
5. Sneaking Exercise in Everyday Chores
When life is super busy, exercise doesn’t have to be a separate activity; it can be a part of your daily chores.
Stretching or doing squats or planking while waiting for the water to boil can be a decent exercise when you do it 3-5 times a day.
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4 Common Barriers & Challenges to Consistent Daily Exercise
1. No Time
When life is busy, don’t aim for a dedicated 1-hr exercise session.
Focus on quick exercises and let them be like a fast snack for your body.
It’s about finding small pockets in your day to stretch and move around.
2. Not Feeling It
One option is to put your favorite 10 songs in a playlist and allow yourself to listen to them only when you’re exercising.
Then even when you are NOT looking forward to that exercise session, you are feeling a bit motivated to hear your favorite songs.
3. No Workout Buddies
Think of it as your personal adventure.
You’re the hero of your story, and you can conquer it on your own.
If you go to a gym for your exercise, when you show up consistently in a specific time frame, you start noticing the same people over and over again (and they will start noticing you too).
And that’s how you can find your workout buddies.
4. Not Perfect at It
Of course, you don’t want to hurt yourself in the gym by doing an exercise in a poor body position, but obsession with doing everything perfectly from Day 1 can make you dislike exercising all together.
You’ll get better and better every day.
It’s easy to exercise on a good day; it’s difficult to do it on a bad day.
As a rule of thumb, our body doesn’t like to exercise or move when it needs it the most.
Sad feelings and depression are parasites that make you crave things that feed them.
It tells you if you stay in your bed all day, you’re going to feel better.
But it is just going to make you feel 10 times worse.
If an exercise session feels like “a lot,” commit to 5-minute stretching exercises because they can make you feel a bit better.
As a wrap up, it is important to remember that it’s all about feeling good, improving your mood, and sustaining your healthy high performance over time.
Want to know how other professionals sustain their Healthy High Performance? Periodically, we bring a group of professionals together and offer an online course. If you are interested, you can click here to sign-up for its waiting list. We will send you more information on how to register for the program.
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