Did you know that families that exercise together have been found to have fewer stress responses than other people?
Exercise is an important part of keeping yourself healthy, and it goes without saying that we all want healthy kids. Exercising as a family might seem a bit mad, but since we all need to do it, why do make a family bonding activity out of it! You’ll all reap the benefits and you’re teaching your kids great habits for life.
But how do you find the time to do it as a family? As always, the secret lies in where you can fit exercise into your daily life. Here are some ideas that I’ve been trying with my family.
Use Gardening as a Workout
Gardening can be fairly strenuous work for a fully grown adult, so it could end up taking a spot on your list of ways to get some extra exercise in.
When you need to approach a task, you can just assign everyone a job that is more suited for their individual talents (or size!). Little kids are great at weeding but you do have to keep an eye on them to make sure they don’t pick any of your precious blooms!
If you want to add a little extra flair to the work, then you can add some dancing and singing to the mix. That will help to keep things light, and keep the kids happy and having a good time with you. Just because it’s important doesn’t mean that it has to be silent and foreboding.
Do an After-Dinner Walk
In a lot of families, it’s pretty customary for every to scatter to their respective corners once the dinner is done, but some people have found after dinner walks to be the answer to their situation. Once the dinner is finished, the family rinse off their dishes, and go on a walk together.
It’s great for digestion, healthy sleep, and it’s much less stressful for the body than dashing off to answer a few more emails before bed.
You can just make a plan to walk around the block, as long as it takes about 15 – 20 minutes to complete. This way you can raise your heart rate for the entire walk, so you can sneak in a little of that heart health for the day.
Plan Family Outings Where Everyone Walks Together
We have so much beautiful countryside and national parks around us and many of them have play areas for kids, assault courses, coffee shops and lots more to make it a full day out.
However, even if you don’t fancy the great outdoors on a particularly rainy weekend, you can still fit in some walking. Sometimes it’s easier to go to a shopping centre or similar where everyone can walk easily. This is especially true when there are elderly members of the family who might not be able to keep up on the uneven terrain that you find in some woods or parklands.
Make Ad Breaks a Time for Fitness
For this last one, you don’t even have to leave your house. Just wait for the ads to come on, and then just up and perform an exercise. Things like star jumps are perfect. If you like, you have even make it a game where someone gets to have control over which exercises are going to be at the next break.
