If Exercise Just Doesn’t Fit…
I was recently asked “what do you do for those who work long hours, don’t have time to exercise in the morning and are too exhausted to exercise by the time they get home at night?”
I’m sure that sometimes you feel that way too, so here’s my solution. Ready?
Don’t exercise, sit at home on the couch with a beer in your hand, watch a nice, relaxing football game, and have some chips.
Just kidding.
First and foremost, let’s address the energy part. We need to plug the energy leaks first, before we start adding in energy. How do we do that?
There are 3 major energy zappers:
- Poor nutrition
- Poor posture
- Poor breathing patterns
This isn’t an article on nutrition, so I won’t go into the finer points of nutrition, but the basics are simple: eat more vegetables. Eat 1-3 servings of meat/fish/seafood per day. Have some healthy fats, like fatty fish, nuts, seeds, etc. Just doing these things alone will improve your energy.
A well-aligned human will simply be a collection of bones stacked on top of each other, with very little muscular effort needed to maintain it. An architect would be astonished at a well-aligned human. But when a person’s posture starts to deviate from “optimal”, you require more and more muscular effort just to maintain your posture. No wonder your energy is zapped. Check out this related article for more information.
Another energy zapper is poor breathing patterns. If you breathe properly (that means breathing into your belly, not your chest, and breathing 12 times per minute or fewer), you oxygenate your tissues very well. Ironically, the more you breathe, the less oxygen you have (the rationale for this is a bit too long to explain. If you’re curious, look up the “Bohr effect.”) So once your breathing has been corrected, that’s another energy zapper gone. Here is an article that talks about it in greater detail.
Now that your energy “leaks” are plugged, you can start adding energy. Exercise is a great way to do that. First and foremost, get rid of the idea that exercise must be an hour long. Even 5 minutes is better than 0 minutes. So start doing just 5 minutes of exercise, wherever you can fit it.
Funny as it may sound, exercise is excellent at clearing away fatigue. Why? Because when you start exercising, adrenaline starts pumping. And nothing gets rid of fatigue like adrenaline. After you’re finished exercising (even if it is just 5 minutes), endorphins take over from adrenaline. These are pain-killing hormones that stimulate your brain’s pleasure and confidence centers.
Short Summary
- There are 3 major energy leaks:
- Poor nutrition
- Poor posture
- Improper breathing patterns
- Exercise helps get rid of fatigue
- Exercise only needs to be 5 minutes
Do you have any questions?
Email me, and I’d be happy to answer them.
Until next week,
Igor
647-271-8672
