Fitting workouts into a busy schedule

Page Description: The spread of awareness of the importance of exercising or workouts to our health and well-being has got many people to find ways to integrate exercise or workouts into their daily routines. However, it’s challenging for some people, and that is understandable because people already have a lot on their plates daily. If you are having a hard time fitting workouts into your busy schedule, then this is for you. This article highlights the importance of integrating workouts into your daily routine, and how to go about integrating exercise into your daily routine.

5 Importance of integrating exercise into your busy schedule

1. Relieves stress

Working out goes a long way in stress management. It helps to relax the nerves, boost confidence, improve sleep, improve mood, and boost energy. When you engage in physical activities, your body secretes more endorphins which are neurotransmitters that help the body relieve stress and pain.

2. Boost mental health

The benefit of working out to your mental health cannot be overemphasized. For you to be productive in your daily activities, you have to be stable mentally and exercising does more than that. Working out relieves stress, enhances memory, improves self-esteem, improves cognitive function, and generally wards off negative emotions. Studies also show that exercising helps to manage and relieve anxiety, tension, depression, and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder.

3. Boost cardio health

Exercise, especially aerobic exercise helps in heart conditioning. The heart is the engine of the body. It is the control room of major activities like breathing and blood circulation. When anything goes wrong with heart health, the body can shut down. Exercising boosts heart health by improving heart rate, enhancing blood circulation, and preventing heart-related illnesses like stroke, and hypertension.

4. Manage your weight

Stressing yourselves 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and 31 days a month doesn’t stop you from adding weight. Weight gain isn’t just about an increase in your body fat level, it is an increase in the overall body mass and that’s why you can see some slim people being overweight. Integrating workouts into your daily routine irrespective of how busy it is will help you maintain a healthy body weight, and prevent the diseases that come with being overweight.

5. Enhances flexibility and mobility

Exercise works on your legs, arms, joints, and muscles, making it easier for you to move around without feeling stiff. It also builds your endurance, making you stronger and able to take on your tasks effectively.

Examples of exercises you can integrate into your busy schedule

Walking: Walking is as good as any other exercise. It helps to build endurance, burn calories, build stamina, improve heart health, and tone the legs. Walking for 30 minutes every day is the ideal minimum time recommended for exercising. If you are recovering from an ailment, work as far as your strength can take you. You don’t have to work long distances; you can start from 10 minutes and increase your timing gradually as your body gets used to it.

Cycling: Cycling is an aerobic exercise that helps to improve the functioning of the heart, lungs, and blood vessels, burn belly fat, strengthen the core and lower part of the body, improve sleep, and enhance your overall body fitness. Cycling works on the arms, leg muscles, and leg joints.

Running and jogging: They are both great cardio exercises that engage your whole body, and their benefits are numerous. Running and jogging are the same thing. The difference is that running is fast-paced, while jogging is slow. Engaging in any of them helps to build endurance, and stronger bones, burn fat, strengthen the muscles, improve heart health and maintain healthy body weight.

Jumping: Unlike other exercises we’ve mentioned, jumping is an anaerobic exercise; meaning that it uses the stored glucose and fat in the body as a form of energy instead of oxygen. This makes jumping a great exercise for weight loss. Besides promoting weight loss, jumping exercises enhance heart health, balance and coordination, strength, metabolism, endurance, bone density, and muscle toning.

Dancing: dancing is a fun activity that does more than just enhance your mood. It engages your whole body leading to better agility, stamina, coordination, flexibility, toned body, and enhanced heart and lung functions. Dancing also helps to build strong bones, strengthen the muscles, improve motor fitness, and helps in weight management.

Yoga: Yoga is a meditative exercise that works on posture, relaxes the nerves, and enhances heart rate. Yoga helps to improve metabolism, flexibility, circulatory health, energy, respiration, and athletic performance.

11 ways to Integrate exercise into your busy schedule

1. Work on your mindset

The mind is the starting point of everything you want to do. When your mind isn’t settled on something, you can’t be productive. Get your mind to accept daily exercising by making it a priority. Tell yourself how important it is to you, and what you stand to achieve doing it. Once your mind can process and realize this, exercising will become less of a big task for you. Your mind connects to your emotions and organs. So, once the mind registers that the body needs exercise, the body becomes more responsive to your activities.

2. Work on developing the habit

When you are starting to introduce workouts into your routine, don’t focus on your duration, but on building consistency. Exercising should be a gradual process. Exercising intensely from the start can make you lose the vibe in the long run, but when you start gradually, the interest will become stronger over time. You can start with 10 minutes of exercise daily, then gradually increase your duration as you progress.

3. Turn your transportation into exercise

Whether you are going to work, school, or going errands, you can turn your mode of transportation into exercise. Instead of driving, you can cycle to work, jog or run when going errands, or walk short distances. Turning your commute into a workout is a great way of integrating exercise into your daily routine, especially for people who hardly have time for themselves not to talk of making time for exercise.

4. Get an exercise partner

Ever heard the saying that alone we go fast, but together we go far? That’s very applicable to exercising. Having a buddy or group of people exercise with you motivates you to do more. The truth is that you’d get tired at some point. You might even think about quitting, but having an exercise partner makes everything fun and easier than it should be.

5. Schedule your workout as you’d your appointments

If you do well with timing everything you do, then you can add exercise to the list of things on your schedule list. Choose a time that works best for you, preferably in the mornings, and set out 30 to 60 minutes of your time for exercising. Add it to your calendar and reminders. It’ll help you stay consistent.

6. Make it a fun and getaway activity

Exercise doesn’t have to be boring. You can play music while exercising, have fun, and watch exercise videos as you practice. Dancing is also a form of exercise. You can dance to music as you exercise. After all, dancing is a combination of different body movements that reflects exercise.

7. Engage in indoor exercise at home

There are days when you might not be strong enough to go out. That’s where indoor exercises like jumping jacks, lying leg raise, flutter kick, bicycle crunch, and planks come to play. You can exercise in your room or arrange a separate room for exercising. Having an in-house gym isn’t a bad idea either. It’ll help you maintain consistency on days that you don’t have the strength to go to a public gym.

8. Wake up earlier than normal

Exercising in the morning is a better way to start your day. It improves your mood and charges you for the day’s activities. If your schedule is so tight that you can’t fit your exercise into it, you can try waking up an hour or 30 minutes earlier than your usual time. It might not be easy at first, but once you get used to it, it’ll become easier.

9. Get a personal instructor

Getting a personal trainer might be pricey, but it’s worth the price. A personal trainer will help guide, motivate, and track your progress. The person can become your accountability partner, which will help you remain consistent with your exercise routine.

10. Involve family members or friends

Involving your family members like kids, wife, and parents will make exercising more fun and interesting. It’ll not only motivate you, but it is a good way of getting your family members to develop the habit of exercising regularly.

11. Leverage your lunch breaks to exercise

You don’t have to skip food entirely. You can take strolls around your office building during lunch breaks. Exercising during lunch breaks will help stretch your bones and muscles, relax your nerves, and relieve stress.

Conclusion

The benefits of exercising cannot be overemphasized. It plays a great role in the fitness and wellness of the body. Now that you have a list of ways to integrate exercise into your schedule, try practicing them as soon as possible. Good luck on your journey to fitness and wellness.

References

9 WAYS TO MAKE TIME FOR EXERCISE WITH A BUSY SCHEDULE

7 Ways To Seamlessly Fit A Workout Routine Into Your Busy Schedule

Incorporating Exercise into Your Busy Schedule

How To Fit Exercise Into Your Busy Life

WAYS TO FIT EXERCISE INTO YOUR BUSY SCHEDULE

How To Fit Exercise Into a Busy Schedule

15 Tips On How To Make Time For Exercise In Your Busy Schedule