Creative Exercise

I feel better when I exercise regularly.  That's just a fact!  However, attending to tiredness and hunger and relaxation-time amidst a busy work day can easily take priority, and sometimes this needs to.  But often, moving my body for just 10 to 20 minutes in the course of a full day helps balance tiredness, reminds me to be more hydrated which adjusts what I may be hungry for, and promotes deeper relaxation later.  What blocks me from choosing to exercise, then?  A big answer for me is drudgery!  Viewing exercise as boring, even if I feel good afterwards.  I've been experimenting with making exercise more fun, and for me, I need creative and changing options, not one static schedule or type of exercise that I must stick to rigidly.

I need exercise to equal play.  Here's how I've been playing lately:

Mini-trampoline, hula hoop, yoga mat, and sneakers. 

I have a mini-trampoline that I love.  I practice interval training by dancing on this.  One easy interval training approach is to exercise at a slow pace for 1 minute, then at a "sprinting" or high intensity pace at your maximum capacity for 1 minute, then back to the slow pace for 1 minute, then intense for 1 minute, etc., until you have repeated these alternating intensities 10 times (i.e., for 20-minutes of total movement).  See this article from the New York Times about this approach and the health benefits - and enjoyment benefits - this offers as compared to exercise routines of constant intensity.  Interval training can be practiced with any type of exercise.  On the rebounder, I enjoy bouncing, running, and dancing to music.

I recently received a beautiful, handmade hula hoop.  I have fallen in love with this hula hoop!  (I'm not kidding!)  I haven't hooped since I was a child, and spinning with my new hoop is so playful for me now.  I cannot walk by my hoop without giving it a spin.  I have integrated this into my trampolining during the interval training routines and this has been such fun for me.

I also take walks in nature as I wrote about here, and incorporate brief yoga routines throughout the week when I can as I wrote about here.

My current regimen just needs more integration of arm exercise.  My playful routine would feel complete if I had Wii boxing.  I have tried this at arcades before and would love to have this at home.  What a great stress reliever that does not feel like "exercise" at all to me!

So there's my ideal creative exercise, at least for now!  Bouncing, hula hooping, and boxing.  What is yours?

(all photos by Marnie Burkman)

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.

Easy Stress Relief Tool: A Cup Of Tea

When I imagine what "stress" is, I imagine anything that triggers a bodily reaction of tension, contraction and cellular overworking that persists even when the trigger is no longer there.  Stress is intense for one's emotions, body and spirit!  I love learning ways to quickly unwind, to tell myself that, "Right now, I am safe.  There is no threat here.  Come back to the present moment and just breathe and be here.  It is okay to relax now."  I will be sharing in a series of posts, over time, some simple tools that offer these calming messages to the body.

Today's easy stress relief tool is slowly preparing and sipping a nice cup of hot tea.  Personally, I am a tea fanatic!  Sipping tea always feels like a treat to me -- the ritual, the aroma, the warmth, the medicinal nature of this beverage.  On a recent wintry day at home, I slowed down from computer work I was doing, and prepared a cup of tea.

I chose a relaxing and digestive-supporting herbal blend that a local natural food store makes.  It contains peppermint, fennel seed, licorice root, fenugreek, and flax seed.

I paused to inhale the soothing scent these dried herbs produce together.  I could feel my heart calm as I did this.

As I poured boiling water over my tea, I listened to the burbling sound it made that reminded me of a stream in the woods.  This reminder of nature, itself, was a stress reliever, triggering memories of happy moments outside.

I waited while my tea steeped for several minutes.  Instead of filling this space with functioning, I just rested and gazed outside at a cardinal on a tree as the snow fell around him.

My tea was ready.  I sipped it and received a quiet moment to share with myself.  A nurturing gesture that I needed.  A simple cup of tea.

(all photos by Marnie Burkman)

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.

Winter Sour Berry Smoothie Experiment

This week, I came home from work one evening and was craving berries.  I had just picked up my monthly share from Locavorious, a community-supported-agriculture company in my area that allows one to eat fresh-frozen local fruits and veggies during the winter months.  This month's share included gorgeous raspberries; a previous month's share had provided vibrant fall cranberries that I still had in my freezer.  My inspiration to meet my berry craving!

I experimented with blending these with other ingredients in a healthy smoothie.  I had eaten heavier cooked foods earlier in the day, so I hoped this antioxidant-rich and detoxifying smoothie would counterbalance this in my system.

My ingredients included:
1 handful of frozen pesticide-free cranberries, 1-2 handfuls of frozen pesticide-free raspberries, 1 tsp-sized chunk of peeled fresh organic ginger root, 1 large handful of organic beet greens, 1 TB of soaked organic chia seeds, 1 tsp of Vitamineral Green powder, 1 tsp of raw organic coconut oil, 1 tsp of organic Amalaki fruit powder, and a pinch of organic cinnamon powder.  I love the rich gem-like colors of the magenta cranberries, fuschia raspberries and purple-green beet leaves!

I blended these ingredients with filtered water in my high-speed blender for 2 minutes, to create this chocolate-colored concoction:

I had no idea how this was going to taste!  I took a sip, and was impressed with how tart and sour this was.  All the berries -- the cranberries, raspberries, and Amalaki fruit (aka, Indian Gooseberry) -- are sour, and I had not added any sweet flavors to this smoothie.  This sour intensity may not be for everyone; additions for sweetness could be to add some agave nectar, honey, stevia, or even a sweeter-variety apple.  Despite this sour surprise, I still enjoyed the smoothie, partly because of how I felt after sipping it -- much more balanced in my nervous system, relaxed, and more clear-headed.  This was definitely a medicinal drink for me.

(all photos by Marnie Burkman)

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.