Movement ‘Snacks’
No, not the kind you eat!
A 2018 study shows that breaking your movement into just a few minutes through the day is more effective and has multiple benefits preferable to several long workouts.
Current guidelines suggest moderate exercise is when you feel warmer, are breathing harder and your heart beats faster but you can still talk. Similar to a brisk walk or active yoga.
Dr Marie Murphy from Ulster University suggests 1 or 2 min snacks multiple times throughout the day and cites stairs as a perfect example of something to do.
Another study did this using stairs with student nurses who saw an increase in their energy, stamina and wellbeing, plus a decline in blood pressure and fatty lipids.
Exercise snacking is also an excellent approach to working with pain too, little and often and movement with pain is well documented as having preferable outcomes to total rest and avoidance of uncomfortable areas.
Whether you come to yoga to work on flexibility, be more mindful, enjoy ease of movement or relax, all of these are best practiced in multiple small doses throughout the week to see positive changes.
In fact this is exactly the approach I take with the majority of my private clients, encouraging them to do one or two pertinent things when they get up from their desk, visit the loo or boil the kettle. Mundane chores can act as reminders to revisit their ‘snacks’.
As a student of yoga philosophy I can promise you that in no ancient text does it cite that yoga is only real or counts if it is for 60 mins in a studio.
So if you can only attend class for half the time, go for it! Ten mins of a You Tube video is better than nothing and if your meditation is interrupted after two minutes by a pan bubbling or a pet squawking, it’s all good, try another two mins later on.
Teachers could perhaps use this idea in class too, visiting the same shape several times briefly, this works especially well in a 1:1 setting.
Little and often can help create familiar grooves in our subconscious and pathways in the brain creating new normals. So go on, treat yourself to a ‘snack’ today.