By Victoria Maneske
Another semester of primarily virtual instruction is underway, and while the pandemic is still a danger, keeping healthy remains important for everyone. With staying at home and virtual instruction, many students have lost the normal hustle and bustle of walking around campus or maintaining their normal activities that gave them exercise. However, there are still plenty of small but fulfilling exercise tips and ideas to keep yourself active, even in the comfort of your own space.
If you are constantly sitting, it may be a good idea to get up and move around every thirty minutes. In that span, you could do some sit-ups, squats, crunches or pushups, which are part of calisthenics that improve posture and body strength. Even standing can have its benefits for your overall health. According to medicalnewstoday.com, “Calisthenics is a form of exercise that makes use of a person’s body weight to train the major muscles.”
Some activities that involve cardiovascular exercise are jumping jacks, lunge jumps or skipping in place. Alternatively, simply doing more chores around the house to keep yourself moving can also be good exercise in itself. Performing some sets of these throughout the day can be enough to benefit your body, as micalnewstoday.com also stated that “According to various studies, cardio can help a person lose weight, maintain brain function and keep cholesterol levels in check.”
According to an article published by helpguide.org, “the current recommendation for adults is to aim for at least 150 minutes of moderate intensity activity every week (or 75 minutes of vigorous intensity) with two sessions of strength building activities per week. That’s about 30 minutes of movement, five times per week. It’s also okay to break it up. Two 15-minute workouts or three 10-minute workouts can benefit you just as much.”
Moderate intensity activities include brisk walking, cycling and hiking while vigorous intensity includes activities such as jogging, skipping rope and aerobics.
The National Health Service in the United Kingdom made this 10-minute cardio exercise routine that one can watch and follow here: https://www.nhs.uk/better-health/get-active/home-workout-videos/. It is a quick and easy set of exercises and doing the routine a few times a week can be a good start to maintaining constant exercise. There is also yoga, which one can find free videos on. A resource to find a list of best rated yoga workouts can be found at https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/317314.
Another point made by helpguide.org is that a struggle people may have when beginning an exercise routine is sticking to it, and that is because they have an all-or-nothing mentality to it. The trick is to start small with planning and tangible goals, then to build momentum and soon there will be an automatic response for it.
Overall, maintaining steady exercise can help you feel more energized, improve sleep, help your immune system and give you more of a boost. Listening to music or podcasts while working out can make the experience more interesting and pleasant. Within this difficult and turbulent time of a pandemic, keeping healthy and active is more important than ever.
