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How-To: Maintain a Daily Movement Practice — No Matter What
Author Jasmine Guillory offers her tips for moving your body — every damn day.
If sales of hand weights are any indication, some people were able to find creative ways to move their bodies—even from within the confines of their own homes. But a lot of us have been sitting more and moving less, or our usual gym-based routines have been disrupted. Here’s one reason to increase your activity: exercise makes us feel good. If you’re hankering to add more movement into your routine, read on for romance novelist Jasmine Guillory’s advice for doing it on the daily.
I’ve done yoga every day for over three years now. It sounds wild when I say it that way, and I think of myself as being the last person anyone would ever go to for exercise advice. But ever since November 2017, I’ve done yoga at least once a day, and it’s made me feel better, both physically and mentally. Here’s my advice on how to build a regular yoga practice.
- Start Small. I didn’t plan to do yoga every day for three years. When I started, my goal was 30 days. And then when I made it to 30, I just … kept going.
- Accountability is Key! When I decided to try 30 days of yoga, I put day one up on my Instagram story. Right around day 10, when I was tired and grumpy and sore, I probably would have given up, but the accountability kept me going. Text a friend!
- Find Classes—or Videos—That Work For You. There are so many yoga videos and virtual classes out there now, and it’s helpful to bounce around between instructors and see what you like and what makes you feel good.
- Find a Variety of Practices. Short and long, easy and hard, first thing in the morning and before bedtime, I’ve done it all, depending on my mood and what’s going on with me that day. It all counts!
Jasmine’s Favorite Yoga Accessories
- Yoga with Adriene: Adriene and I are best friends at this point, even though she doesn’t—technically—know who I am. She has a video for literally anything you can think of: Yoga for writers? Five minutes of yoga in the morning? Yoga for when you’re in a bad mood? It’s all there!
- The Gaiam Yoga Mat: This yoga mat is far and away my favorite. It’s nice and thick if you need a little more cushioning under your knees, it has a good grip if your hands and feet get sweaty while you practice, and it’s easy to clean.
- MobiPoint® Massage Ball: Yoga has not changed my tendency to hold my tension in my back and shoulders, but it does give me the opportunity to try to release it. While I’m practicing, I use this massage ball to relieve some of that tension. I lean on it against the wall or the floor, sit or stand on it, and roll it under my hands and wrists, and it’s so helpful.
Working Out Without Wearing Yourself Out
Gretchen Reynolds, author of The First 20 Minutes, has written about the science of health and fitness for The New York Times for over a decade. Here are her tips for tiny changes that will make a huge impact on our health.
COVID-19, of course, upended everything, including, for most of us, our fitness goals and routines. While recent surveys about exercise behavior indicate that a few people have managed to repurpose the hours they once spent commuting into extra-long runs or pleasant little jaunts on brand-new eBikes, most of us have been sitting more and moving less than ever before, with predictable and unwelcome impacts on our physical and emotional well-being. The good news, though, is that quite small changes in how we spend our time now could have outsized benefits on our health.
- Step Up: You know, I know, and everybody else knows that sitting for hours on end is unhealthy. Thankfully, inspiring studies this year show that getting up and walking for as little as 11 minutes a week or an extra 1,000 steps a day can help substantially. So, stand up now, even if you are working, and walk down your hallway a few times. Or gather the kids, tell them it’s time for a PE break, and chase each other around the block. You could even try peripatetic Zooming, with meeting participants carrying their phones or laptops from room to room as they speak. (Dramamine optional.)
- Lift Your Spirits: We might not typically consider weight training as an antidepressant, but several interesting new studies in 2020 underscored that becoming physically stronger makes us emotionally happier and much more stress-resilient. So, lift some weights. And no gym necessary. At-home push-ups, crunches, and wall squats build strength as effectively as elaborate weight machines, while milk jugs or dictionaries make fine dumbbells.
- Make Room for Awe: Optimism and cheer might feel hard to come by recently, but one of my favorite new studies says we might rediscover them by changing how we stroll. Instead of rushing through a walk, our heads full of concerns about work, politics, and the pandemic, look up and about. Drink in the scenery, the sounds, the novelty, the scents. See—really see—songbirds, sunlight, flowers, children, dogs, and dappled leaves. By cultivating a sense of awe while we walk, the new study concludes, we can end up happy, refreshed, and better prepared mentally for whatever’s ahead.
Laugh Your Way into a Workout
Madan Kataria, M.D., popularly known as “the guru of giggling,” is the founder of the laughter yoga club movement that started in 1995 in Mumbai. Here are his tips for improving your mood through laughter yoga.
Tens of thousands of people all over the world are raising their spirits—and improving their health—by doing laughter yoga and joining online laughter clubs. Ten to 15 minutes of laughter yoga can reduce stress, boost your immune system, and help your mood.
- Warm-Up Exercise (Ho Ho, Ha Ha): Before starting with laughing alone exercises, ensure that you do a warm-up. Try to fake laughter by saying “ha ha ha,” “he he he,” and “ho ho ho.” These exercises will be even more fun if you do them alone in front of a mirror. Do them gently in the beginning and gradually increase the intensity until you are comfortable. Keep doing this till you can laugh genuinely, and try different ways to fake laughter sounds until you find those that amuse you.
- “Ho Ho” Sounds From the Belly: Put your hand on your belly button. With your mouth open, say “ho ho ho.” Feel the movement of your abdominal muscles and let the laughter sounds from your belly stimulate the diaphragm. After a while, increase the speed and burst into laughter while saying “ho ho ho.”
- “Ha Ha” Sounds From the Chest: Place your hand on your heart and say “ha ha ha.” Feel the vibrations in your chest. After a while, increase the speed and burst into laughter while saying “ha ha ha.”
