3 Easy Tips to Move Your Body

Welcome back to Week 3 of the Feel Less Busy Series.

Last week, I shared with you my tips for stopping multitasking. This week, let’s talk about how to move your body.

If you’d like to revisit posts in the Feel Less Busy series, click here to explore ideas and tricks to make the most of your precious and plentiful time. I’m sure you’ll find something that you can try!

Do you ever dream of being off the clock? You know what I mean. No errands to run. No tasks to check off the list. No car pooling, dinner to cook, homework to check. Why is it, that busyness seems to be a badge of honor?

Well my friends, I’m here to help.

Making enough time in my day is something I love to do. I secretly get a buzz when people wonder how I live the life of an executive, with three kids, travel the world, and still take vacation and do what I love (reading and writing).

I believe that you can have the life you want. Feel calm. Get more done. Achieve time freedom.

Week 3: Move Your Body

This week’s post might be triggering to you but I encourage you to read on. In the past, I associated movement (or exercise) with one thing. Losing weight. I would obsess over calories in and calories out. Maybe you’re doing the same thing. In my mind, the only good way to move my body was to burn lots of calories. Running. HIIT. Cardio classes. You name it, I did it (hello, half marathons and two hour gym sessions).

But here’s the thing. The real beauty of moving your body is the way it makes you feel, both physically and mentally. And research continues to show that regular movement can give you more energy, increase your happiness and IQ. Sounds like a great way to bring more joy into your life, right?

The Science of Energy Production

If you’re like me, where managing energy is the best path to productivity, then knowing how body movement impacts this becomes super important. Let’s look at the science for a minute. Remember back to your biology classes where you learned about mitochondria? Those cute little organelles inside cells that are involved in releasing energy from food. Mitochondria’s main job is to break down glucose into adenosine triphosphate (ATP), which is energy that cells can use.

To work properly, mitochondria needs oxygen, as well as healthy levels of glucose, omega-3 fatty acids, magnesium, B-vitamins, l-carnitine and alpha lipoic acid.

So moving your body becomes a way to increase oxygen intake and train your body to utilize it efficiently. As your body uses up more energy, it will also produce more mitochondria in order to keep up with the demand.

Can you see how this fits together? Expending energy and using up your oxygen keeps mitochondria healthy. And moving your body stimulates the growth of new mitochondria, meaning your body can produce even more energy over time. More energy for your body and more energy for your brain. Winning all around!

So how do we move our body when there just doesn’t seem to be enough time in the day?

I’ve worked out a few ways to be efficient in moving the body (and increasing oxygen update in general). I’ll share these three tips with you and you can decide which ones help you.

Tip 1: Walk More

Believe me, this is the easiest way to move your body more. Whether it’s walking to work, getting off the train or bus a stop (or two) earlier and logging some steps on your commute, taking the stairs, or walking the dog. But here’s the thing. At first, this seems just too easy.

Surely moving your body has to be difficult, right? You need the outfit. The shoes. The brag factor of the boutique workout class.

Sometimes, we just over complicate things in life. But if we truly want to feel less busy, just get out there and move. And walking is your easiest option.

And believe me, it works. We recently moved houses while we are renovating. I normally drive to work and park in the building. On any given day, I would be lucky to walk 2,000 steps. I’m choking as I admit this.

But now, I’m walking to the bus stop (it’s a 20 minute walk), catch the bus to work (and by the way, am able to complete my daily journal on the bus to work and do some meditation on the way home) and then walk another five minutes to the office. Twice a day. It’s contributing to 10K+ steps a day, without even going to the gym and pounding away on the treadmill.

Am I adding extra time to my day? Yes. Is it worth it? You bet. I’m moving my body and can even add a bit of intensity by walking faster or taking a route with a few hills.

Tip 2: Get Stronger

I’ve probably tried every exercise fad since I was a teenager. So the topic of strength training is an interesting one. There are so many options available and rather than try and suggest one method, let me share what I’ve found to be the most effective for me. I shared my normal morning routine here but like any high performer, am constantly changing it up and trying out new things.

My goal is to have functional strength and increased energy. The way I do this is with high intensity, full body strength training. I target each of the five major muscle groups: arms, legs, back, chest and glutes. I use high resistance (around 75% of maximum capacity) and do one set (90 – 120 seconds), where the movement takes about 15 seconds. It’s super tough. But it is fast and delivers results.

These exercises can be completed on machines, using body weight or free weights. The most important aspect is that they are super slow and are at close to maximum resistance. The best part is that I’m done in less than 15 minutes.

Tip 3: Try Some Yoga Poses

Do you notice how I’m not recommending going to a yoga class right away? When you’re trying to be less busy, adding another task or class to your already packed schedule is a great reason to do nothing. Plus, there are so many different types of yoga, that it doesn’t seem right to stick to only one. I’ve tried hot yoga, bikram yoga, hatha yoga, vinyasa yoga. And sometimes I’ve loved the teacher. Other times, not so much.

So try to move your body more by adding some yoga poses to your day. There are a couple of really easy ways to do this. I love the simplicity of watching YouTube. Yoga by Adrienne (she also has an app) and Boho Beautiful are two of my favorites and its easy to search for finding the yoga flow your body needs.

Second, think of downloading a yoga or stretching app. Some common apps are Daily Yoga, Asana Rebel, Down Dog or 5 Minute Yoga Workouts.

Third, if you’ve got 10 or 15 minutes, try these 10 yoga poses for stretching and energy:

• Pelvic Tilt
• Cat Cow Stretch
• Downward Facing Dog
• Low Lunge
• Straight Leg Lunge
• Mountain Pose
• Standing Forward Bend
• Pigeon Pose
• Happy Baby
• Corpse Pose.

So, that’s it for Week 3 of the Feel Less Busy series. I hope you found it helpful! Moving your body more has been scientifically shown to increase your energy, improve happiness and improve longevity. Move your body every day. In some way. Big or small. You’ll feel so much better when you move that precious body of yours and as it grows healthier and stronger, you’ll find more things to want to do with it to achieve joy in your life.

I’d love to hear what you do to feel less busy in the comments. Remember that time is both precious and plentiful. So enjoy its abundance and joy.