Moving

My homunculus at work.
The Week of Self-Awareness is zooming along, and I've got another challenge all lined up.  I tried this Daily Mind Game earlier, and I must say, I don't like what I'm seeing.  An overview of my self-observations from yesterday: bed, table, car, desk, table, desk, car, sofa, table, sofa, bed.  Unfortunately, that isn't a stream-of-consciousness gone wrong.  No, that is an account of my sedentary lifestyle.

How physically active are you?  The reason I ask is that our brains are organs.  In our bodies.  Sooo, when things happen (or don't happen, in the case of exercise) to our bodies, our brains feel a piece of it.  Oh yeah, and in case you forgot, our brains are pretty important for lots of things.  Anyway, back to physical activity: more and more evidence is piling up that physical activity may protect our brains from many age-related diseases and enhance general cognitive health at all ages.  Importantly, very small changes in activity level, like walking or standing more, can have a big effect.  So, massive changes in behavior aren't necessary to reap the benefits.

Don't I sound like I know what I'm talking about? Well, guess what? I'm a hypocrite: I spend a lot of my day sitting on my rear end.  So, do as I say, not as I do! And, please don't feel badly if you're in the same boat as me.  I empathize with your guilt through the intrawebs.  Nonetheless, we all have a general sense that more activity is usually better, so for today's challenge, we're going to observe our physical activity level in order to increase our self-awareness in this area.  Maybe we'll see simple ways we can increase our activity a smidge.

Moving

Task: Observe your physical activity for the day.

Info: Questions we'd like to answer today include: how much time is spent sitting, standing, walking, running, swinging kettlebells etc.  When sittting, do we fidget or sit still?  Are there opportunities to integrate more moving-about into our day?  Again, as in previous posts, the focus of the challenge isn't to actually move more.  The focus is on observing our behavior.  After we're informed, finding ways to improve should be easier.  Finally, try to brainstorm a few simple ways you might increase you activity level.

Goal: Determine how much physical activity you engage in, and think of three simple ways to increase it.

One thing I like to do is to try standing up while I work on my laptop - I stack a bunch of books on a counter-top to bring the laptop to the right height and get my geek on.  I often feel much more energetic, for longer, working that way.  My coworkers say I'm strange, but I just howl like a monkey at them until they let me be.  Just kidding :)

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