4 Seamless Ways to be Well
How COVID kept me on my toes
In the last year-and-a-half I’ve been experiencing a lot more of life from a chair. Zoom? Seated. Work? Seated at home. Shopping? Same screen as work and Zoom. And on and on.
As with a lot of people, I’ve been experiencing much less incidental movement than I was before the pandemic. My situation is a little unique in that I graduated college into the pandemic. Also, I transitioned from a lifestyle wherein I lived in a tiny village. I walked to class, I walked to the gym, I walked to my dorm, I walked to my friends’ dorms, I walked to my meals. In other words, I went from consistent periodic movement to being somewhat sedentary, and you may have too.
I also sought more variety, so I decided to get more deliberate. Here’s how.
1. Walk to work + Walking meditation
The number of stacked benefits from this one alone boggles my mind:
- getting more steps
- ability to get Vitamin D
- mental grounding
- hearing the sounds of nature
- lowering your carbon footprint
- and moving, of course.
It’s also what I’d consider incidental movement — you have to get to work anyway, right? For me, this means parking at a lot about a 10-minute walk away from my workplace. Just because I can’t walk all the way to work doesn’t mean I can’t still get in movement on the way to work. One thing COVID has taught me about getting moving is that it’s not all or nothing. Anything counts.
I use Headspace’s walking meditations, but I’m sure there are many available on YouTube as well. You can focus on appreciating what’s around you (gratitude), noting your surroundings (grounding), or many other things.
You’ll just need to:
- Make sure you have an umbrella
- Wear supportive shoes to walk in, with work shoes in tow
- Slap on some sunscreen, and don’t forget the sunglasses
- And of course, plan extra time into your commute
2. Connect on a stroll
My situation may be slightly different from yours in that I just graduated during COVID from a tight-knit college community and moved back home where many friendships from high school have fizzled out. Or my friends had already moved away. Regardless, most of us have friends we’re forced to connect with only from a distance, and COVID expanded that group to be…basically everyone.
Obviously, this works for FaceTiming and regular ol’ phone calls. While I’m not a proponent of multitasking to “fit in all the productivity that you possibly can,” I don’t pretend that I have unlimited time in the day. What I’m saying is it can be hard to fit in any form of exercise and socialization into your day. And you need to be more deliberate with that socialization if your office is remote. Since it’s not built into your workday as it once may have been, parts of your social life will also take time from outside your workday.
Try setting up a standing date with a friend for a lunchtime stroll, after-work stroll, or whenever works.
3. Promenade partnering
I know you’ve heard it before, and likely experienced it yourself, but it’s much easier to get yourself moving in the first place if you’re doing it with someone else.
I’ve felt this personally because (1) when you are doing anything with someone else, you have to plan. And planning means you need to talk about the action and decide on a time that you will set aside deliberately for this action. And (2), the other person can help keep you accountable.
4. Share it
For those of you who don’t do well with consistent posting (like me), a smart watch may sync with Strava and post your exercise automatically. You can personalize the post later if you want.
One of the sweetest beauties of these new ways to move is how seamlessly they fit into my life — and how they may fit into yours too. As you can see, they fill two functions: moving and connecting, both of which have been made more difficult during the pandemic. These strategies also help me stay in touch with friends from my newly disbanded college community while helping me navigate what work-health balance may look like for me. That balancing act never ends, as our lives and needs change.
Please share your pandemic wellness workarounds. They will benefit us all!
