In part one, I encouraged you to be kind to yourself through identifying your preferences, your limits, so you can begin to set (or strengthen) your boundaries as one way of improving how you feel. In part two, I wrote about how sleep improves your mental and physically well-being and encouraged you to focus on a different Act of Wellness if improving your sleep was out of reach. In part three, I encouraged you to discover what types of foods you enjoy and to differentiate between hunger and appetite, in order to eat more satisfying foods. Before I get to this week’s act, a quick reminder about what influences how we feel and a run-down of Acts of Wellness.
How we feel is directly influenced by our beliefs about ourselves, our life experiences, the amount of support and connection we have with others, the quality and quantity of our sleep, how often and what we eat, and how well our body moves. Note: see A.D.A.P.T if your life experiences have left you feeling ‘broken’ or extremely critical about your choices or abilities.
This guide is designed to be picked up and put down as life happens and it emphasizes wellness. Wellness encompasses how you think about yourself and view your ability to make intentional choices to make changes to your life. Our wellness is influenced by our mental and physical health.
Health involves more than achieving and maintaining a certain weight or appearance. Health is about recognizing when our actions are improving our well-being (wellness) and when they are harming our well-being.
I have organized this guide into four acts: Self-Kindness, Sleep, Nourish (food), and Move (physical activity). Within each act, there are three wellness-focused tasks to choose from. These four acts had the greatest positive impact on my mental and physical well-being. Self-kindness helped me build resilience and shift my negative views of myself. Improving my sleep brought clarity and more energy. Nourishment (eating habits) increased my stamina and improved my mood. Overtime, those factors supported moving my body more often and in more challenging ways.
I encourage you to choose an act of wellness; daily, weekly, or whenever you think of it and see how it improves your mental or physical well-being. You can start with kindness or start with a different area. You could hyperfocus in one area or dabble in several areas. Another option is to practice 2 to 4 acts each week over several months.
Engage in acts that are appropriate for you and your life. Appropriate for you acts are something that will make you feel good now and in the future. You may experience a sudden sensation of excitement, a burst of motivation to take action, or an “ah-ha” moment. Or it may include an attitude of let’s see what happens.
Keep in mind, each person has different resources and support as their disposal. Further, bodies respond to food, movement, and sleep differently. Use common sense when applying information from this guide and do not disregard medical advice or delay seeking medical advice because of information you read in this post. I do not make any guarantees about the results of the information applied in this post. I share educational and informational resources that are intended to help you improve your mental and physical well-being.
With that out of the way, let’s look at this week’s act – move.
Move Your Body – To Improve Wellness
Physical activity includes movement and exercise. Most of us are well-aware how physical activity improves our overall health. Many of us are clueless on how it impacts our mental health. Physical activity improves mental health in similar ways as medications that treat anxiety and depression; and exercise has been shown to improve attention and focus in similar ways as ADHD medications.
Moving your body for at least 5-10 minutes a day can improve your attention and focus, increase your energy levels, and improve memory sharpness. Physical activity releases brain chemicals that make you feel more relaxed, optimistic, or calm. Moving your body can distract you from your negative thoughts or problems. Physical activity helps your body release frustrated or anxious energy.
This post does not include a fitness plan or exercises. I do not know your health or medical history. This post contains information on the benefits of increasing your physical activity or build upon forms of physical activity you are already doing.
Every person responds to physical activity differently. Health conditions (diabetic, high blood pressure), age and life stage (pregnancy, menopause) can change the body’s response to physical activity.
If your physical activity is limited due to pain, inefficient functioning due to an injury or health condition, consult your primary healthcare provider and maybe even seek care from a physical therapist, podiatrist, or movement specialist before applying or testing out any information provided in this guide.
Remember to be kind to yourself as you put the information in this section into action; progress, not perfection.
Physical Activity Types
Movement and exercise are different types of physical activity. Both are important to achieving body, fitness, and health and wellness goals.
Movement is ANY physical activity that expends energy. Exercise is physical activity that is planned, structured, and repetitive.
When we move, the brain sends targeted signals to the muscles to produce movement. The skeletal system (bones) provide support to the muscles as we move. Our bodies are meant to move in many directions: side to side, forward and backwards, bend, pivot, twist, jump, and leap. When our bodies lack multi-directional movement, they begin to function inefficiently.
Inefficient functioning can lead to inactivity due to aches, pains, or injury. Including different types of physical activity strengthens the connection between our brain and body. That strong connection between our brain and body may prevent us from becoming injured when we need to react quickly or to maintain control of our balance.
You may need to start by increasing your movement if…
You sit for over 8 hours per day. You may be at a higher risk for health complications and exercising 30 to 45 minutes per day may not be enough* to achieve your health, body, and/or fitness goals.
You may need to start with increasing exercise if …
You tend to be on your feet continuously for at least 6 hours per day or your job is physically demanding. Incorporating exercise, 2 to 3 days per week may be beneficial to your health, body, and/or fitness goals.
*Based on guidelines from CDC, WHO, & AMA. This information can be hard to take-in. We all start somewhere and something is better than nothing.
Types of Movement
Here are a few examples of activities that count as movement — these are things you are probably already doing or maybe feel guilty for doing instead of exercising (let go of that guilt).
Meeting physical activity guidelines can feel discouraging or overwhelming. Adopt the mindset of something is better than nothing. Start with increasing your activity by 5- 10 minutes per day, every other day, or three days per week.
DAILY MOVEMENT IDEAS
- Getting caught up on laundry – washing, drying, folding, & putting it away.
- Washing bedding – strip the bed, washing, drying, and making the bed.
- Sweep, Vacuum, and mop a room or area of the house.
- Deep cleaning – wiping down ceilings, walls, furniture.
- Washing windows, washing curtains, dusting/cleaning light fixtures, dusting pictures or wall decor.
- Cleaning your child’s room/Assisting your child in deep cleaning their room.
- Yard work – Pulling weeds, leaf clean-up, snow removal.
- Detailing your car – vacuum, wipe down interior, remove clutter, washing the exterior.
- Cook or bake something elaborate or batch cooking for easy meals during the week.
- Play with your kids/spouse/friends – hide ‘n seek, nerf tag, water balloon tag, kickball with a balloon (indoor friendly), bump a balloon back & forth, utilize whatever you have around the house.
The following types of movement are ways to be active away from your home and may require a financial or time investment. These activities may also require buy-in (encouragement, caregiving support, enthusiasm) from your spouse, kids, extended family, or friends. These could be solo activities if those around you are not as excited about doing these things with you or are unable to support you.
MORE MOVEMENT IDEAS
- Walking/Jogging/Running – In your neighborhood, at local parks or trails. At State or County parks and forests near you. Ice Age Trail Segments (Wisconsin), North Country Trail Segments (ND, MN, Northern WI, Upper & Lower MI, OH, PA, NY, & VT), or Appalachian Trail Segments (GA, NC, TN, VA, WV, MD, PA, NJ, NY, CT, MA, VT, NH, & ME).
- Biking – In your neighborhood, trail biking, racing, fat-tire biking, etc.
- Roller-skating, Rollerblading, Skateboarding.
- Snowshoeing, Cross Country Skiing, Downhill Skiing, Snowboarding.
- Recreational Kayaking – small lakes and rivers are nice for beginners.
- Remodeling (DIY type) – demo, rebuilding, finishing, and decorating usually requires multiple trips to the store, loading and unloading materials, moving materials to proper location, measuring and remeasuring, cutting and installing, you get the idea.
- Playing a recreational sport in a league or playing a sport with your kids/spouse/friends. For example, kickball, soccer, volleyball, basketball, and so on.
Types of Exercise
There are different types of exercise and each have their place when achieving your health, wellness, body, and/or fitness goals. Ideally, each type of exercise should be present in a training program — many of the types of exercise overlap. Let’s look at each type and their benefits.
FLEXIBILITY & MOBILITY
Flexibility is the ability of your muscles to stretch. Mobility is the ability to move your joints (as well as tendons, ligaments, and muscles) through their full range of motion.
FLEXIBILITY & MOBILITY
Muscles and joints that are flexible and mobile, as well as strong, are less susceptible to sprains and other injuries. Speaking of injuries, your flexibility and mobility can change after sprains, tears, broken bones, pregnancy, child birth, and major surgery (cesarean, knee, heart, shoulder, etc.).
Flexibility is the ability of your muscles to stretch. Mobility is the ability to move your joints (as well as tendons, ligaments, and muscles) through their full range of motion.
WEIGHT TRAINING
Aids in strengthening your bones and keeping connective (ligaments, tendons) tissue elastic. There are many forms of weight training: build muscle strength, build muscle endurance, increase muscle mass, and increase muscle power. There are many modes of weight training: body weight, dumbbells, barbells, kettlebells, resistance bands, etc.
CARDIO
Strengthens the heart, blood vessels, and lungs. Any physical activity that makes your heart pump faster, leaves you feeling breathless, and lasts for at least 10 minutes, can be considered cardio exercise.
BALANCE
Focuses on strengthening the core (all parts of the body except the arms & legs). Having a strong core may help you avoid falls, help you stay active and independent as you age (balance diminishes around age 50).
AGILITY
Coordinates the core with the upper and lower limbs of the body during movement. These exercises improve your reflexes and reaction time which is beneficial for preventing falls.
If exercise or increased movement feels out of reach to you right now, you can ease yourself into exercise through practicing Greasing the Groove.
Greasing the Groove
Greasing the Groove (GTG) means performing the movement improves the movement, and your technique will improve the more you do it. GTG helps build the connection between the brain and the muscles. To GTG, begin with ONE exercise using your own body weight, perform the exercise 5-10 times, and repeat this multiple times per day, daily, for several weeks. GTG exercises should not leave you feeling fatigued or tired and you may add light to medium weight to prepare your body for more challenging exercise.
In my Act of Wellness guide, I have provided several visual greasing the groove “workouts” to strengthen your body for increased physical activity.
Next Steps – Do what’s best for you
Part four is the final installment of Acts of Wellness. I hope the information in these posts help tune-out the confusion and overwhelm and left you feeling somewhat capable of making changes to your well-being. If you need a little more encouragement, here’s a few final pieces of information.
Your body has unique needs for food, exercise and movement, and sleep. Changes to one of these areas can affect the other areas.
It’s normal to experience fluctuations. Your weight will fluctuate (fyi-this is not a measure of progress or health), your motivation will fluctuate, your energy fluctuates, your time, your interests, and your priorities fluctuate. Honor those fluctuations.
The only constant in life is change. What works now, may not work in the future. What worked at age 30, is not guaranteed to work at age 40. There is nothing wrong with you; things work, until they don’t.
When you begin to work on yourself, it can be a catalyst for change in other areas of your life. Change may bring about loneliness and highlight what is not working well in our lives. As you become healthier, stronger, happier, or more energized, it may feel like those around you are placing obstacles in your way. In most cases, this is not intentional and you may need to work directly with a helping professional to navigate these challenges.
Speaking of helping professionals, sometimes wellness providers have a hard time understanding their client’s or patient’s lived experiences and barriers. These professionals may forget how their life experiences, their training, schooling, income, or natural tendencies positively influence their abilities and actions. Change is hard even under the best circumstances.
A coach or health professional’s job is to inform you of your options and allow you to choose, without judgement or pressure. If you come across any professional that dismisses your concerns, pressures you to choose an option, or demeans you in any way, seek a second opinion or find a different health professional (if you have that option).
Do what’s best for you and for your situation.
If you would like to put Acts of Wellness into practice, you can purchase it here or by clicking on the image below:
Also included in this guide:
- Several visual meal guides to help you transition from fun foods to frequent foods as a way to figure out what foods taste good and what foods leave you feeling satisfied and energized.
- Three Greasing the Groove ‘workouts’ that will help you build coordination by strengthening the connection between the brain and the muscles.
- A wellness tracker coloring page. It can be hard to gauge your progress when you begin to build consistency (doing things here and there). Filling in a leaf can help you see how those small act add up. Or engaging in different Acts may help you find what Acts of Wellness lead to improved mental and physical well-being.
My A.D.A.P.T Wellness Guide was created to help you break the exhausting cycle of feeling horrible and critical about what you are doing, what you are not doing enough of, or what you are not doing at all.