Being in isolation can play with your mind, especially if you're an extrovert. The more you're told you have to be in, you want to be out. Don't! According to the news tonight (Thu 2 Apr 2020) if 90% of us stayed home in isolation, we're closer to be free of current circumstances in 3 months; 80% - 4 months; 70% and lower - out of control; so let's do it! Together we can make a difference, by staying home for now. Resist the urge and instead, revel in the challenges put before you. Learn something new and learn to be self-reliant for your own entertainment and happiness.
Don't be afraid to go internal, to dwell in the quiet deep within. To listen to the still and meditate on all the good around you still. Isn't there a saying;
what doesn't kill you, makes you stronger? To do that, we need to cover the basics, to have the right fuel in our body that'll give us core strength. For starters, we can eat healthy and well, get a good night's sleep, and if you're already feeling low and lost, remember that alcohol is a major depressant as is the comedown from other substances. If it's beyond your capabilities to help yourself, remember there's help out there. Talk to someone.
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For those fortunate enough to be able to leave home to take advantage of exercising; great! You can walk, jog, cycle and so on. For those with a home gym and all the exercise equipment; fantastic! Keeping fit is not a problem. Just ramp up those tunes that make you want to move and get going. Then there are some of us with young children, unable to leave the house easily to keep fit. Especially single parents without a partner to take turns staying home with the kids while you go out to exercise.
For myself, I've always maintained the economical
KISS (keep it simple stupid) method works just as well. All that's ever needed are a few basic pieces of equipment to keep fit, and push comes to shove, no equipment is necessary. For those without equipment, you can resort to
moving or
dancing on the spot. Use stairways, steps or a high curb to do full-body
Steps Workouts or if you have something akin to a park bench, you can do a
Park Bench Workout.
For those who have a few pieces of equipment; the kind of pieces I've found most useful to simply keep fit and maintain a healthy weight were never expensive. Follow the example links given below to see what you can do with said piece of equipment.
Never forget to warm up and warm down and search for exercises that are appropriate for your age, your weight, your fitness level, and if in doubt, check with your medical professional before embarking on anything you've never done before.
For those of you with
little ankle biters (kids), get them involved, and/or use them in your routine, and it's all equipment free. Kid's love running around in the backyard and having little competitions, so it's easy if you have a few kids to set up little competitions with mum and dad doing relay running games, skipping rope together in the back yard, hula hooping, backyard badminton, tug-of-war etc. If you have a table tennis table, that can sure give you a workout. Isn't it very Aussie to play footy and cricket and basketball in the backyard? For other family exercises with very young kids, see below and of course, you can find heaps more.
With all that's going on out there, don't forget, just like good food,
exercise is medicine and a good way to keep stress levels down while keeping fitness levels up.
For a bit of fun with purpose, why not try some
Face Yoga. No doubt the kids might think it's hilarious and want to do it themselves, emulating you. There's a
whole range by the same instructor, so check it out and have fun doing it.
