Exercise is vital for your physical health. But also, your mental health. At Three Little Birds we believe that physical exercise can improve your day-to-day mood. Evidence suggests it can improve mood, sleep and focus. It helps with overcoming depression and reduces stress & anxiety.
From personal experience, exercise improves my mood on every day I partake in it. Even simple exercises such as a walk, but if your aim is also to improve physical health home workouts, running and cycling can massively help with this. Or anything sport you enjoy. Joining a sports team is not just great physically but socially. I play rugby at university and I have met some amazing people because of it, fallen in love with the sport and felt great whilst doing it.
Exercise can be done at the gym or at home or outdoors. There is so many places and things to do to keep yourself mentally and physically fit.
Fun ideas for at home exercise with no equipment:
Use weighted bags of sugar or water instead of dumbbells.
Can use a desk chair for step ups and Bulgarian lunges.
Whilst you're brushing your teeth, you can do some squats or test your balance with standing on one leg.
Home workout videos are always a good idea. Can do 5 minutes or an hour, depends how you are feeling on the day!
Little tips to get going on a day:
For me personally if I get up and do exercise, I feel so much more productive during the day and it helps me get my university work done. It also helps in my sleep, because of a productive day I get a good night’s sleep and feel like I can start the next day. And the cycle repeats!!
Even on the days I do not get up and start going, any time of the day I do exercise I feel amazingly better.
Written by Isla (Three Little Birds Volunteer)