How To Move More During The Day 

Working from home can have many advantages. We don’t have to commute. We miss traffic. We can do laundry during our lunch. However, when we work from home we can spend all day sitting in front of the computer. Even if you are not working from home, many jobs involve sitting all day. 

We understand everyone is incredibly busy. It can feel hard to figure out how to move more during the day. Moving our bodies is good for both our mental and physical health.  It can be helpful for anxiety and depression in particular. We want to share some tips to add in more movement. 

  1. Cue your brain that you are doing something different: If you are used to waking up and starting working, your brain needs to know you are doing something different. A cue is a trigger that can help to start a new habit. If you want to walk in the morning or workout in the morning lay out everything you need the night before. This includes exercise clothes, headphones, shoes, ect. You can put them on the floor in front of the bedroom door so that you have to step on them before walking out of your bedroom. This is a great reminder to put on your workout gear and get moving.
  2.  Suggest walk and talk meetings: We are so used to doing lunch meetings or coffee meetings. You could suggest doing a walk and talk meeting with a coworker or friend. You can pick a park or neighborhood to meet at and walk around. Getting outside with fresh air and sunshine can also be helpful for your mental health. It also can help wake you up and give you more energy.
  3. Think about your values: think about the things you value in your life and why moving more is important to you. You want to get really specific about why you want to move your body more. One you know your values and your why, you can set a reminder on your phone when you want to walk, workout, or move. The reminder can say something along the lines of ,”walk because X value is important to me.” For example, “walk because my health is important to me.”
  4. Talk on the phone and walk: You can make it a habit of talking to friends or coworkers on the phone and walking. You can even ask some of your closet friends or coworkers to help you be accountable to this by sharing your goal to walk and talk on the phone with them. When you are on the phone with them they can ask you if you are walking to check in. If you are not, this could be your reminder to walk.
  5. Use visualization: Imagine how you will feel if you move your body more. You can imagine how you want to move more doing the day and how you will feel after you do it.  Really get a clear picture of when you want to be moving and what you want to be doing. Visualization can also be helpful because as you visualize what you want to do you are able to see if there is anything that might get in the way.
  6. Dress for movement: A big barrier to walking, moving more, or exercising is that you are comfortable and don’t want to change and get ready. You can try wearing your sneakers and workout clothes to work, if you are able to. If you are working from home, try wearing just workout clothes on your bottom half (no one can see that from the zoom meetings 🙂 ). You could also try changing into workout clothes an hour before you want to workout so you get mentally prepared that you will be walking soon.

We hope that you are able to try some or one of these tips to add more movement into your day. It is important to also note if you are struggling with an eating disorder to talk to your physician or therapist if you are wanting to add more movement into your day. For some individuals with eating disorders, and depending on your stage in recovery, adding more movement might not be a good fit. If you do not have a therapist you can learn more about eating disorder therapy here. 

*The spelling and grammar in this is likely not perfect. I am focusing more of my time on producing content to try to help more people instead of proofreading and editing. Hoping what is written over how it is written is what resonates with you. Let’s not let perfection or fear of making mistakes stop us from what we want to do in our lives.