GUEST BLOG POST – Exercise Snacks: A Quick Guide to Being Active When You Don’t Have Time

The thing is, the more active you are, the more time you can actually save. It’s hard to “carve out” time for running, biking – whatever it may be – when you feel like you can still get active when you are a bit older and still get the same benefits.

Yet, your activity levels in the present determine your abilities in the future. Your body is designed to move and it needs to do that, not just in five or ten years, but also now.  Use activity to reclaim some of your day. Here’s how:

Don’t “carve out” time for exercise

• You don’t carve out time for eating; you eat because you need to (and hopefully because you like to).
• Consider physical activity as non-negotiable in your week. Embracing this mindset is a crucial step; like eating, your body needs movement to function properly.
• Yes, not eating will shut your body down much faster than not exercising will. But lack of movement causes your overall health to waste away – it will catch up to you.

How to start: don’t aim for 150 minutes of exercise per week; set your sights on 60 minutes and when you are hitting that consistently, add some more.

Regardless of how busy you are, we all have (and need) some degree of leisure time. Look for ways to “activate” this part of your week. Take a stroll with your friend instead of sinking into the sofa.

Getting some fresh air and sunlight exposure are nice bonuses that come with many physical activities. And, all of these improve mental health, saving you time you might otherwise lose to internal distractions, such as stress and anxiety.

This doesn’t only apply to leisure time either. Next time you head to the grocery store, park at the far end of the lot and then carry your groceries around the store instead of using a cart.

If you don’t have the option to walk or bike to work, start getting off the bus a couple stops early. Put your headphones in and use this extra walking time to call your parents or grandparents so you can cross that off your list too.

Start having exercise snacks

These days most of our idle time is lost in our phones and with it most of our opportunities to get a quick exercise snack.

1. You don’t always need half an hour to get an activity in. Boiling the water for your tea? Great chance to get 20 squats in.
2. Commercial break? How about some pushups?
3. Waiting for the elevator? Reach for your toes.

Challenge yourself: next time you have to wait a couple minutes for something, get a quick exercise snack in before you start scrolling.

Forget what others think: be part of the movement

The first time your colleague sees you doing lunges while you wait for your coffee to brew they might have chuckle. The second time they won’t laugh and the third time they might join you.  We need to reclaim these areas as active spaces and destigmatize getting movement whenever we can or want to.

We find many things funny or odd the first time we see them. How many things do you still laugh about the fifth time? How about the tenth?  It doesn’t take long for things to become normal.

Use short bouts of movement to boost productivity

During those long days of work or study, you can use quick movement breaks to boost your productivity and refresh your alertness.  Sixty seconds of jumping jacks gets your blood flowing and gives you a mental break to focus on something else. You’ll easily make that minute up and then some.

Don’t want to interrupt your workflow? Wait until you catch yourself daydreaming.  Crucially, these movement breaks also give you a chance to get out of static postures – your body will thank you later.

Improve your sleep

Your work might require you to work irregular hours, which already isn’t great for sleep. Not moving only makes this worse.  Getting exercise tires your body out, helping you fall and stay asleep. This makes your time in bed more productive, as you rejuvenate, and your time out of bed more productive, again saving you time.

Make a commitment to yourself

This is how it all starts.

• What is your goal and why is it your goal? What is your motivation for getting active?
• Share this with a friend to keep yourself accountable and ask if they want to join you on this journey.
• Lastly, schedule it into your week. This is the first step to building self-efficacy in your health journey.

Once you get the ball rolling, things will fall into place and the benefits will start manifesting themselves with improved mood, increased productivity, physical wellness, and much more.  Dropping a small pebble – an exercise snack – into your day sends a ripple across the entire pond of your life, sometimes even spilling over into those around you.

Being in touch with your own health and wellness will help you be in touch with that of others. The same solutions we’ve talked about here might be just what some of your patients need as well.