Bust a move to bust your anxiety
Just know that “busting a move” doesn’t mean you have to do something HARD, or that you have to spend a lot of time doing it. Anything you want to do here will help you. It can be as simple as walking or doing some gentle stretching exercises inside your home.
Although, if you choose to walk, may I suggest you try it outside? Because as I noted in this post the other day, getting outside is great for lowering anxiety. And, of course, ANY form of exercise will do: running (ugh), yoga, weight lifting, tennis, cycling, swimming . . . ANY exercise will help you to feel better and lower your anxiety. That’s because you not only burn off excess nervous energy, but you also release positive endorphins.
Image by Matthew Lejune on Unsplash
It’s the DOING that’s the issue.
W all know that exercise is good for us.
We know that it will actually help us burn off steam, clear our minds, and lower our stress and anxiety levels.
WE KNOW IT ALREADY!
The thing is, when it comes to movement, we don’t recognize it as a NEED. We instead see it as an option.
Eating? Necessary. Sleeping? Necessary, even if we don’t get as much sleep as we might like. Pooping? Necessary, even if things get a bit messed up (pun intended) from time to time.
But exercise or movement? Well . . . mostly we see it as a matter of choice or preference. It’s not entirely necessary. (Even though it will help us with the sleeping and pooping and other things in life.)
The current guidelines advise us to get 150 minutes of moderate exercise or 75 minutes of vigorous exercise per week. That 150 minutes of moderate aerobic exercise boils down to just over 20 minutes per day, or half an hour of exercise a day for 5 days a week. Moderate aerobic exercise includes swimming, brisk walking, and mowing the lawn.
But even small bursts of activity scattered throughout the day count. Using the stairs in your home (if you have them). Gardening. Cleaning. Dance breaks. Yoga. Tai chi. Weight lifting. As little as five minutes here, ten minutes there adds up.
Some simple and (hopefully) fun strategies to help you add exercise into your day:
walk, dance, or march in place during commercial breaks
hold a plank for the course of a single commercial
or do either of those things above between episodes if you are streaming something
social distance your car when you need to run errands by parking far from the door
walk and talk: put your earbuds in and phone a friend while you take a neighborhood walk
take a family member (or pet) with you on your local walk
dance it out—there are dance classes free online, or you can try something like my personal fave, The Fitness Marshall, who posts workouts on YouTube.
stand up if you are on a conference call (by phone)
set a timer so you stand up and move around a bit at least once per hour (and consider filling your water glass when you do—hydration helps, as I mentioned on Tuesday).
As I noted on March 28th, exercise helps you sleep better, too, in addition to helping you to lower your anxiety levels. And of course it’s good for lots of other reasons, which you already know. I hope that this email will remind you that exercise doesn’t have to be hard or scary, that you don’t have to do any form of exercise that you don’t like, and that you can get your exercise in small, easy doses.
As for me, I’ve been doing my yoga-stretching about five days a week (I either use a Rodney Yee DVD or Yoga with Adrienne, which can be found on her website or on YouTube). Plus Morris and I take a walk together every day that it’s not raining. I’m about to start adding a daily plank in there, plus reintroducing The Fitness Marshall twice a week—I had to take a step back on all of that due to my recent health scare (I had adenoma removed from my duodenum, and we were lucky to catch it before it became cancer).
I legit have to remind myself that sweating is good for me, because it means I’m in calorie-burning mode. But moving just to move (and without sweat) is just fine too.
Get those 20-30 minutes of movement in each day, when and as you can.
Want some additional (non-exercise) tips to help you lower your anxiousness? Buy a copy of Lower Your Anxiety, the e-book I compiled that is full of techniques and ideas to help reduce anxiousness and anxiety.
