Up until a month and a half ago, Amy and I had a really solid gym habit that had been going on for more than two years.
We were going to the gym consistently about five to six times a week. I was tracking my food and following a fitness program—when it all came to a halt. With no more gym to go to, things pretty much went downhill.
The good news is we’ve transitioned reasonably to working out at home—although it’s nowhere near to what I was doing when we were going to the gym. The bad news is, well, the shift wasn’t the easiest.
One important thing to do during stressful times is to move.
I don’t mean packing up your stuff and moving to a different location. What I mean is physically moving your body in any way that you can. Finding ways to move more at home.
A defining characteristic of any habit is the transition point, which for our gym habit was driving to the gym and walking into a dedicated space for working out. I’ve said before that my workout habit for the past couple of years hinged on simply showing up at a gym. But since that clearly wasn’t going to work with non-essential businesses closing down, now I had to find a way to move more without being at the gym.
It’s really hard to create a similar transition point when you’re at home almost all the time. This was exactly what we experienced when we began working out at home with the stay-at-home orders. We had to find ways to move more, to generally add more movement to our everyday lives.
In the video above, I talk more about the transition and finding ways to play and move more, reducing anxiety, and being more in sync with how our bodies are designed to be.
For more ideas on how to move more, check out these 5 effective ways to add more movement during the day.
This is part three of a series called This Can Help, about the little things we can do during times of greater uncertainty. Next in the series is Daily Declutter.