We hear so often that the one thing most people struggle with is building exercise into the day, but it can have such an important effect on your overall wellbeing.
Having kids, a busy job, a long commute, and a social life are all reasons/excuses to avoid exercise.
Exercise plays a vital role in our mental and physical wellbeing. It regulates our hormone production, helps us sleep, keeps our weight healthy, releases endorphins to boost our mood, build muscle tone, prevents injury, lowers the risk of heart disease, diabetes, and strokes…we could go on and on and on.
You can build exercise into your day more easily than you might think and give your wellbeing a bit of a boost.
How Much Exercise Should I Do Each Day?
It is better to think about how much exercise you should do each week. And that really depends on the type of exercise you are doing.
The NHS and World Health Organisation recommend around 150 minutes of moderately strenuous exercise per week, plus strengthening exercises on two or more of the days. There is more detail in our article on how much exercise is enough, as it can change depending on your age and the level of exercise you are doing.
So, if you think you need to do 150 minutes per week, that is around 20 minutes a day.
We can all find 20 minutes to do some exercise-right?
There is a trend these days to do 10- or 20-minute workouts. Plenty of apps and YouTube fitness stars say you only need to do short, sharp bursts of exercise. But to really get the benefit of cardiovascular exercise you need to keep you heart rate above its resting rate for a sustained period.
If you can find time over the weekend to do a couple of half hour cardio sessions it is highly recommended you do. You don’t need to strap on the sweatbands, just go for a walk and get out of puff. Or clean your house vigorously so you are breathing heavily. Speed polishing anyone?
But if you can’t find time, pick a few of these quick workout wins to build exercise into your day.
Use Our Handy Infographic
Our handy infographic below will give you some quick exercise ideas to help you squeeze exercise into your day.
Choose a cardio or a strength training workout. Do each one for a minute and repeat 5 times.
Or, if you fancy combining the two, do each move for a minute and repeat twice, then do your two favourite exercises for the remaining two minutes.
You don’t even have to do them all together if you are pushed for time.
Try doing the cardio exercises before your morning shower for 10 minutes and doing the strengthening exercises whilst tea is cooking for 10 minutes.
Then you are done for the day and your wellbeing will be greatly improved.
If you would like more useful advice and tips on improving your wellbeing, have a look at our resources for some helpful articles.
