Home Healthcare Tips – Movement & Exercise
As we are all trying to navigate a new reality under the current COVID-19 physical distancing and stay at home recommendations, it can be difficult to know how to implement a good self-care routine at home. At Trillium Integrative Health Centre, we are blessed with a wonderful team of knowledgeable practitioners. We want to pass some of that knowledge onto you to help you implement some good strategies for addressing your overall health and wellness during this time.
We are introducing a small mini-series where we will be posting a short blog from each of our practitioners over the next 2 weeks to help guide your home based self-care routine. Some of the topics we will be addressing include:
- Movement and Exercise
- Mental Health
- Nutrition
- Meditation & Relaxation
- Acupressure & Traditional Chinese Medicine.
If you have any questions after reading our blogs, please don’t hesitate to contact us at info@trillium-health.ca.
Movement & Exercise:
First up on our list of home healthcare tips is movement and exercise. When we are out of our regular routine, maybe working from home, looking after kids, home schooling and unable to go to our regular exercise classes or group activities, it can be hard to keep up with a regular exercise routine. Less exercise and movement through our day, spending more of our time indoors and possibly more hours of sitting, can all lead to an increase in aches and pains, feeling of lethargy and poor motivation for good self-care habits. Here are some tips to help you get back into a better (if some what altered) movement and exercise routine:
Create a daily Routine:
This may look very different to our pre-COVID routines but it is so important to create a regular daily routine that keeps some order to our day, gives us purpose and keeps us motivated towards some end goals. Without routine we can get distracted and good intentions can go awry. This may involve just yourself or it may include your whole family, but getting everyone on board and engaged in the daily routine will help with that sense of achievement and purpose in a time when that can feel absent. It may look very structured or it might be a bit more flexible, but try to at least maintain regular sleep schedules, create daily intentions and split the day up into different activities to create a bit of variety.
Get Outside:
When we are being encouraged to stay at home, self-isolate and maintain physical distancing it is easy to get stuck indoors. However, there is so much evidence and research that shows the importance of getting outside has on our physical and mental health. Try to aim for at least 30 minutes of outside time each day. This can be done incorporating activities such as walking, jogging/running, bike rides, walking the dog, family walks, nature walks with the kids, gardening (as the snow starts to melt) or snowshoeing (until the snow melts). Breathing in some fresh air, being closer to nature and getting a bit of sun on our skin (when it is out) will do heaps for our motivation and ability to cope with some of the restrictions we are currently under.
Set an Alarm:
Working from home may be a good alternative to a crowded office space, but it may also mean compromises in your workstation set up. More than ever it is important to move regularly and take little micro-breaks from your workstation. Set an alarm for every 30-45 minutes. This can prompt you to change your position, do a couple of stretches, go get a drink of water, take a bathroom break or do something a little more energetic like jogging on the spot. Rather than thinking of it as a disruption, think of it as an opportunity to fit in a little self-care to prevent pain or stiffness, improve focus and alertness and these little micro-breaks can actually improve productivity.
Daily Exercise:
We might not be able to get to our regular exercise classes or meet up with friends to do our regular group activities but that doesn’t mean we have to abandon ship and give up our healthy dose of exercise all together. Now more than ever, regular exercise is going to be vital for our physical health, injury prevention, mental health and immunity. Try and make it part of your routine and decide when during your day you are likely to be most compliant. For some this might be first thing in the morning, for others it might form part of a midday break and some it might be at the end of the day. There is no right or wrong, you just want to schedule it when you are most likely to do it! It can be different each day to offer some variety. I would suggest a combination of cardiovascular exercise, strength training and stretching based exercise. It can be self-guided or there are lots of online offerings out there at the moment that you can take advantage of including both free and subscription sites. Our local Full Circle Yoga Studio is also providing online classes both paid for and free options. Find out more at http://www.full-circle-yoga.ca/schedule/
If you have any questions or need a bit more advice, please feel free to contact us at Info@trillium-health.ca.