Lifestyle, Quality of Life
As I sat down to write today, this quote kept coming to mind. Whenever my mind keeps returning to something I always assume it’s important so I followed my intuition. Of course, I assumed I’d reflect about how much longer we live in the modern age than our ancestors did, but I thought that I’d better do a little digging to see if that was actually true.
I found these posts (here & here) that suggest that we don’t actually live longer than the ancient ones or even our great grandparents – ‘scientists have compared the life span[sic] of adults in contemporary hunter-gatherer tribes (excluding the infant mortality rate). It was found that once infant mortality rates were removed, life span[sic] was calculated to between 70 and 80 years, the same rate as that found in contemporary industrialised societies. The difference is that, in the latter, most individuals survive childhood.’
Of course, popular belief still holds that we DO in fact live longer (and you can easily find many sources to support that).
But then I thought – does it really matter if we live longer or not? Each one of us will live for exactly as long as we live and we don’t really have any control over the number of our days. What we can control is whether we take care of our bodies well enough that they are still working properly as we near our end. Every single one of us already knows that we should get plenty of sleep, move our bodies, learn to manage stress, and eat well – and we probably all have a pretty good idea what it means to do each of those things. The question is – are you taking care of your body? Or will you feel like ole Eubie (above) as you near your hundredth birthday? Don’t wait until it’s too late – start taking care of yourself today.
Exercise, Lifestyle, Quality of Life
How many people do you know who are alive – technically?
People who are still with us physically but are limited in what they can participate in due to health issues or physical impairment.
Unfortunately I know a few people like that – enough to know that I don’t want to live my life like that. I don’t want to live my life waiting for it to be over. I want to live my life. I want to see everything, DO everything. I don’t want to miss a minute with my loved ones – especially not because I didn’t take care of myself like I should.
I have great intentions for taking care of myself. I love to exercise, heck I even love to run for the block and a half that I can run before I’ve lost my breath (I can never figure out the breathing) and I enjoy many physical activities with my little family. But realistically, I’m in the same boat as a large percentage of Americans. I have a family, I volunteer my time in several capacities, I work too many hours and all too often I really am deciding between doing one more thing or getting a decent night’s sleep. It is far too easy to push taking care of myself to the back burner regardless of how much I desire something else.
That’s why I love Minute Movement. Aaron developed Minute Movement because he just wasn’t able to fit in time for exercise and he wondered what would happen if he started exercising while he was at work. What happened is that I noticed a difference in the way his body looked one morning a few weeks later and asked him what he was doing.
Now, even with all that we have on our plates, we stop every hour for one minute to give ourselves the gift of health. We fully intend to experience our lives in the state of being well – won’t you join us?
Lifestyle, Mental Health, Quality of Life
I turned 40 over the weekend. (Don’t worry, this story turns out okay.)
I’ve really been struggling with the pending rollover of a decade for the past year or so. I was consumed with all of the things that I thought I’d have accomplished by this point in my life (like becoming perfect) that I hadn’t accomplished, not really being in the ‘place’ that I pictured for myself, getting O.L.D.(er). Top those normal passage of years issues with the fact that this year my kids turned 16 and 13 – more big milestones – and when I look at them all I can see is my time with them slipping racing away and I just felt so sad.
Then I ran across this beautifully written post by Lindsey Mead that practically describes my very own life – and was exactly what I needed to start changing my mind.
I don’t have to be all dramatic about the passage of time – it’s going to pass anyway. Instead I can be grateful. I can be grateful for the wonderful people in my life, my material blessings, and my health (even if it’s not perfect – it’s more perfect than what other people are experiencing). I can be grateful for the time I have been given to live and to love and I can be grateful that I am still alive to turn 40.
This different mindset didn’t automatically make me happy to usher in a new decade but it has led me to some introspection (as much as I can indulge in while also starting a company, raising two teenagers, and living my otherwise busy life). Now that the ‘big day’ has passed I finally feel like I can relax again and I am beginning to look forward to this next stage of my life with anticipation and excitement .
Oh, and my awesome little family made my day so special. My daughter created something she called a ‘joystick’ that has ‘most’ of the great things about me (she ran out of room) and they organized a wonderful surprise party for me complete with a visit from my sister and niece – all the way from Georgia!
JOY!
Lifestyle, Nutrition
There is a tendency in our culture to expect maximum return with minimal investment.
Fast food … Texting … Weight loss … Love …
If something’s going to happen I expect it to happen NOW.
The Minute Movement® program won’t give you that. The focus of this program is not immediate, drastic transformation. While we completely recommend that you work to the point of burnout during each movement, we don’t want you pushing yourself to the point of actual burnout. The focus of this program is creating positive lifestyle changes that really are sustainable for the rest of your life.
The type of fitness program that results in 60 pounds of weight loss in 90 days are not typically sustainable for the rest of your life.
Why not?
Well, for one thing they’re very time consuming. You are usually required to hit the gym for a minimum of 30 minutes, five days each week. While this type of program can be fun and rewarding and is completely doable when you’re single and work a 9 to 5 job – it doesn’t translate well to the way many of us are actually living our lives. Then you have the diet portion of these programs – which are typically very, very intense.
So, even if you are a person who can fit the workouts into your schedule and won’t have anyone complaining about chicken breast for dinner every night; you may still find yourself feeling exhausted or deprived and eventually reverting to old habits.
Minute Movement is about changing your life – and the way you look at your life. So, while you might not see miraculous changes every time you step on the scales (and we don’t recommend putting too much power in that number anyway) you can be confident you are creating positive habits that you can sustain for the rest of your life.
Lifestyle
Habits.
For some reason, whenever I think of the word habits, I think of negative habits – that i should give up or stop doing.
I love that this clip (only four minutes) by Gretchen Rubin focuses on positive habits – particularly ‘foundational habits’ (sleep, proper nutrition, movement, and uncluttering) and how those habits prepare you mentally and physically to tackle your more lofty aspirations.
As a busy mom and entrepreneur, I find that the first thing to go is usually self care. In fact, if I were being totally honest, I might even say I take some amount of pride in sacrificing myself for the family or the creative process. As a result I seem to be constantly struggling with these baseline habits. I’m worst about getting enough sleep – so I think I’ll focus on good sleep habits this month.
What foundational habit(s) do YOU need to incorporate into your life?
Lifestyle
