Five Steps To Improve Your Health and Happiness You Can Take Today

We all want to increase our health and happiness.

Here is an easy five step process that you can do today to improve both immediately…

1. Walk into a gym.

Derrrrr! We all know exercise is good for you!

2. Lock your phone and all other devices in a locker.

Then walk back out and never access social media again!

No, just kidding.

Though even Facebook agrees that social media can be bad for your mental health

3. Do some resistance or interval exercise.

It does not matter if it’s machines, free weights, calisthenics (body weight exercises) or a combination of all the options.

It does not matter if it’s heavy strength training, metabolic conditioning, primal movements, Pilates/abs/mat work, hypertrophy or any other goal driven activity.

It does not matter if it’s on your own or in a class but a class may be better – see below.

Do not do long slow distance cardio. Certainly not on an electronic treadmill or other machine.

Rowing ergometer high intensity intervals are fine.

4. Alternate between exercising and rest every 30 seconds to 5 minutes.

During the set it should be fairly easy to stay present and focus on the task at hand.

During the rest period, I mean really rest. Your body and your mind.

Don’t spend this rest period thinking about all the stressors in your life.

Stay present and mindful.

If you are going hard enough, you won’t have to try to not think. You will be entirely present focussing on your breathing and the sweat angel you are leaving on the floor.

If you are not gasping for air, or changing the weights you are lifting, look around at other people. Be present.

If you catch the eye of someone else in the gym/class, not just the hottie, smile at them. They’ll likely smile back.

This is why you need to go to a communal exercise space. This will not work exercising in your own home or space.

Being around other people makes us feel better. Especially when everyone is working to achieve a goal, whether that is the same goal or not.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

I’ve discovered a new way to do mindfulness meditation for 30 mins or more. Spinning class. Now, I am not a big fan of cardio. The only running I usually do is chasing a ball or running to get to the squat rack before someone else gets there. And I’d much rather do a few sets of heavy squats supersetted with an upper body exercise with short rest periods to get the heart rate going, sweat flowing as my high intensity interval training (HIIT). But I decided to break a 10 year drought and do a Spin class last week to finish off a gym session. Something different and a bit more energy burnt I thought. What I discovered, or maybe more correctly remembered, was that you can not think about anything else except keeping your legs moving to the speed of the beat, and the prompts of the instructor. In the last couple of years I have been trying to incorporate a meditative practice into my day and in recent months have been able to implement about 20 minutes or so most days. Staying present and not letting your mind wander is the key to mindfulness meditation. A lot of people enjoy yoga for this reason, it makes you concentrate on your breathing and the poses, which keeps you present and mindful. Some people say that running is their meditation but long slow distance training lets your mind wander and similarly rest intervals in HIIT allow the same. I went back this week and did the class again. So, I’ve broke a habit of a decade (often a good thing) and incorporated some ‘cardio’ into my routine. And I’m not just getting the benefits of extra cardiovascular fitness but also the huge benefits of a mindfulness practice.

A post shared by Physio Strength Club (@physiostrengthclub) on Aug 4, 2017 at 9:58am PDT

5. Do this for 20 – 60 minutes.

Anecdotally, 20 minutes is a good minimum time to engage in any mediatatiove practice, and a good amount of minimum time to keep your heart rate elevated to achieve some health goals.

Over 60 minutes and you run the risk of starting to produce the stress hormones cortisol and that will be counter productive to your health and happiness – chronic stress being the opposite of what we want to achieve.

That is it.

I guarantee if you do that you will have improved your health and happiness when you walk out of the gym, and should stay that way for the next 24 – 72 hours.

Enjoy,

Scott