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E Is For… Exercise!

Writer Zen Garden Posted on by

Exercise! Love it or hate it, we all need more of it – especially if you, like me, are a person in love with words, reading, writing, and all the other things we do while SITTING.

Sitting is the new smoking.

You’ve probably heard the new buzz phrase: “sitting is the new smoking.” According to the Heart Foundation, they decided to do some research and find out if that’s true. You can see the article from 2019, here.

Turns out, it is.

I’m also sure, though, that you’ve probably heard ad nauseam all the exhortations for how to move more: stand up during phone calls, get up once an hour, don’t sit so much, bla bla bla.

It’s not that those ideas are bad, it’s just that they aren’t addressing the root problem. We aren’t being honest enough with ourselves. We sit because of stress, or because we just can’t take it anymore. Modern life is STRESSFUL. Even if you don’t work a stressful job like a firefighter, we all are feeling it – the pandemic, growing social unrest and polarization, fears about the economy, the climate, our own safety in our communities from epidemic gun violence, spiders…

No really. Spiders are on my list, dude.

Point is, we sit because we crave relaxation, ease from all the noise and fuss and bother.

What if I told you, a simple walk will help with that relaxation?

What worked for me are a couple things:

Gratitude walk

Try going out for a 20 minute gratitude walk. Each step you take, say in your mind, thank you. And get specific and granular. That silly little thing you’re grateful for? Walk it out!

  • Sunrise
  • I woke up this morning
  • I have enough to eat
  • My bills are current
  • There aren’t any spiders on me right now

 

Yes, silly does work. Here’s the magic of it: the silly lets our brain start doing its brain thing and free associating. You may find, as I did, that once I start allowing myself to get silly (I’m grateful for the dark chocolate Dove bites that my family member got for me), then my brain starts coming up with even more things to be grateful about (I have a job, I have a car and enough gas to get around, I love my cats). Also, walking for gratitude doesn’t hit our radar as “Exercise” with a capital E. So it can help us to get around the “doan wannas.”

Be inefficient

Say huh?

No, really!

Take the stuff from the living room to the kitchen in three trips instead of one. Walk the long way around the house. Leave your purse in the car and then go back for it. Take a deep breath and let go the obsession with having to getitalldonerightthissecond. Be willing to move. Oh, crap; my water is in the kitchen. Guess I’d better get up and go get it.

Be willing to befriend others in your journey

Smartphones allow us to do a lot of amazing things, like play solitaire in the bathroom. But they can also be boon friends to us. Why not schedule a video call with a friend and go for a walk together? I’ve done this with friends in other states even. You start up the video call and share the walk. It’s a fun way to get out of the house, off that damned chair, and moving. And when you’re talking with someone, the time passes in a different way than if we’re there, just us an our thoughts, exercising.

Change your language

Don’t let exercise be a bad word. I’ve been up close and personal with someone who wasn’t able to make this shift, and she died a long, awful, and painful death from complications of obesity and immobility. NONE of us want that. We don’t want to fall at the table during a holiday meal and have to call the fire department to come help us back up again. That doesn’t take us down a journey we want to go. But the thing is, we all have to take a journey. It’s up to us whether we want to do it on our terms, or in pain and unable to use our bodies.

We ARE our bodies. It’s high time we acted like it.

Now get out there, and MOVE.

Comments

E Is For… Exercise! — 9 Comments

  1. What a powerful post! Yes, witty and smart and sensible but also POWERFUL. I say this because, like you, I knew someone who died an awful, agonizing and slow death from immobility and all that means. Also like you, my primary relaxations (as well as my work activities) are sedentary ones. So often, after stressful hours at computer-based work, it is easy to tell myself that I DESERVE to curl up in an armchair and read, knit, watch a favorite movie . . . . But even more I “deserve” – we ALL deserve – to be able to move freely and pleasurably. Sometimes undertaking movement even in those moments when it doesn’t seem pleasurable at first is a way to rediscover and celebrate what is truly a primal need: the need to MOVE.

  3. At a Grief Share meeting, I heard about someone who took a walk and listed all their gratitudes as they went, and I liked that. I never heard of it referred to a gratitude walk before, but I love that.

  5. Agreed on all counts. Especially loved the “Change Your Language” concept. Framing negative goals like seeking to NOT do something is so much more powerful by reframing it into a positive, a seeking of FORWARD movement. Change “I should get up off the sofa and move” to “when I get up and move, I have a more optimistic attitude the rest of the day” (or something like that). Thanks for the post.

  6. Yes! Great post. I do the inefficient thing all the time. Sometimes even deliberately. I also park farther from the entrance than I need to. I have a daily step goal that I strive to meet and I usually save a few steps to be done during something I look forward too: the funny monologue on the late-night talk show. I totally forget that I’m exercising. I enjoyed this – both the tips and the humor.

  7. Amazingly powerful and persuasive piece of prose. Brilliantly executed. Best yet, this exceptional submission is … inspiring… which, soon, you will hear all about I presume.

    Authentic, real, humorous, and motivational. Thank you so much for sharing your experience, wisdom, encouragement and support with all of us who struggle to prioritize movement throughout our day-to-day. My gratitude to you.

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