Everyone knows that the best way to be healthy is to eat less and move more. The purpose of this article is to show you many ways to move more even when you’re not formally exercising. Physical movement gets your blood circulating. The better your blood circulates through your body, the easier it is for your body to clean out the toxins that we ingest in our food and from our polluted environments.
Do you remember the exchange in the great comedy Beverly Hills Cop in which one of the real Beverly Hills cops told the other that he had just read that most people have six pounds of undigested red meat in their digestive tract: “and you eat a lot of red meat.”
The more we move, the more we can remove all the excess chemicals and other products that long-term bring our health down.
Make Sedentary Games a Condiment to Life
Of course, if you want to have a Set tournament with friends on the weekend, do so. Even then, you can get up to do more than visit the loo and get another brew. We all play a lot of games online—probably too many. So whether you’re playing your favorite computer game or playing online poker, you should do everything you can to keep that activity to a minimum and move more.
Watch Less TV
A corollary to the above piece of advice is to watch a lot less television. We sit in front of the tube for hours on end. The less television you watch, the more you’ll move around. No one is suggesting replacing watching tv with hundreds of sit-ups. Just more physical activity.
Get Up from Your Desk
At work, you want to appear to be a busy beaver. In fact, if you have that kind of job, you probably are. You still need to get up, stretch, and walk around. A break does not have to be for a long time—just enough to restore good health to your blood vessels. Overly sedentary work is known to lead to leg problems from cramps to phlebitis.
Take the Stairs
Unless you’re too old and infirm to take the stairs, you work on a high floor, or you’re rushing to a meeting, walk up the stairs. You’ll find that if you start with one flight at first and work your way up, you can walk up several flights of stairs. After all, how did New Yorkers manage to live in all those six-floor walk-ups all those years?
It’s even easier to walk down the stairs.
If you work on a high floor, you can take the elevator to a floor below where you work and walk up from there.
Park Far Away
When you go to the supermarket, the Big Box store, to the mall, or to work, park as far away from the door as possible. It’s not like you’ll be a mile away. A few hundred yards of extra walking in the long run will keep you healthier than if you find the closest empty parking spot.
Walk
You can learn to walk for 45-60 minutes almost every day. This is not Olympic caliber walking but it’s also not leisurely strolling. People complain that walking in the city is boring and dangerous. So, don’t walk where it’s boring and don’t walk where it’s dangerous.
You can drive to a different place to walk not every day but often enough to reduce the boredom factor. You can walk in a local park. In the United States there are thousands of state parks. Everyone lives close to at least one. Get a friend or friends to walk with you.
Plan an Excursion
The idea of getting a friend or friends to join you is the perfect segue to the next item on our list: plan an excursion. The idea of an excursion is great for bringing people together and to get yourself moving. An excursion could be an afternoon at the museum. Most people walk through museums. They may stop often to read or to look at the paintings or other displays but even when you’re standing you’re moving. When we go to a museum, we lift and stretch our legs constantly because standing in one place is truly hard.
Go to the Pool
If you hate walking and you can’t get others to go with you and you live close to a year-round pool, then we suggest going to the pool regularly. It’s even better if you have a pool in the back yard. Everyone who loves the pool says that the feeling of water on their skin is one of the best sensations there are.
A lot of people who can’t swim like to walk in the pool.
Find Small Projects
There are always little things you can do in the garden, in the house, in the neighborhood. Once a week, take a bag and walk around the neighborhood picking up litter. It isn’t a lot of exercise but it’s good movement for your body. If you look around, you’ll see a lot of project ideas.
Learn Easy Floor Exercises
A man named Moshe Feldenkrais developed a series of floor exercises that devotees swear are the perfect exercises. They are not designed to increase muscle mass or get your cardiovascular system in top shape. In short, they get the blood flowing, and that’s always good – Feldenkrais Method.
Another “easy” set of exercises is called Zhan Zhuang. It is also called “standing like a tree”. As easy as it looks, you’ll find that it isn’t easy at all yet all you do is stand.
Go on Vacation
The last item on our list is simply to go on vacation. Unless you love to sit on the beach or by the pool all day, a vacation by its very nature will get you moving. A few days in Venice will put miles of wear on the soles of your shoes; you’ll feel tired but rejuvenated.
You don’t have to go the Venice. Any vacation that invites you to move about is a great way to get you to….move about.
