Be patient and we will build on the January challenge with addition of recovery in the form of extra breaks and smart rest. Continue to maintain a reasonable level of ambition and you will notice that there is time to recover from work and training!
strength stairs
Table of contents
What you will be able to bring with you during the month
- You can take more breaks and rest smarter without thinking about it.
- Be patient and just do it and vips, you have created one or more habits.
- You become more alert in both body and bud when you get more tranquility in your life.
Quick questions and answers if you want to get started now
Heart – It is so simple that if you take breaks during the day and rest in relation to how you exercise and train, the body is less stressed and the heart thus has a calmer everyday life.
Muscles – Immediately after strength training, stretch and unwind, around 10 minutes per session a week.
Brain – Train yourself to find positive meaning, aim to find an event every day. Same as in the January challenge. Put your mobile phone away for a while and also start writing a diary.
Social – Do things together with others and pep each other. Same as in the January challenge.
In general – aim to get 60 minutes of rest and rest 20 minutes a day.
You want to get a sustainable health.
Science and the broad mass experience show that we need recovery in relation to the load we are exposed to in the form of work, study, exercise or training. We need both short breaks while we do work and we need to rest after exercise and training.
Whenever during the day, the time that fits you.
Several short breaks works as good as one long.
Every day for a month, to begin with.
Close your eyes and just sit still for a while to find your calm breath, walk a little slower than usual, do yoga for a while, meditate or exercise conscious presence.
Find positive meaning in a good or not so good experience.
Where you get the inspiration and where you have the opportunity.
Home, at work, in school, in the car, on the bike.
You who want to attain a sustainable health.
Young and old, mobile as immobile and trained as untrained.
Everyone should be able to participate.
More details about the challenge
What will you do?
Let the heart have a break
It is so simple that if you take breaks during the day and rest in relation to how you exercise and exercise, the body is less stressed and the heart thus has a calmer everyday life in the long run with lower blood pressure and fewer beats.
Rest the muscles
Immediately after strength training, stretch what you have trained and unwind, around 10 minutes per session a week.
When stretching, be present for the moment and hold the stretch for at least 30 seconds so that the muscle (s) relax (you will feel it) and stretch properly.
One recommendation is massage and it works well with self-massage, eg that you rub the muscles on yourself.
Train the brain
Exercise in finding positiv meaning. Your goal should be to find one event with a positive meaning every day.
Be social
Do you activities together with others. We have learned through this pandemic that we can meet in all sorts of ways. We can meet through phone, chat, video or in real life with a sound distance. So gather colleagues, school mates, friends or family and relatives you enjoy to make this more fun for all.
Purpose
You who want a sustainable health, with a good balance in life and with an effort that works over time. Science and the broad mass experience show that we need recovery in relation to the load we are exposed to in the form of work, study, exercise or training. We need both short breaks while we do work and we need to rest after exercise and training. Read more about this on Passive and active recovery.
Create routines for sustainable habits
Take your pauses and rests at any time of the day, the time that suits you. Do it every day for a month, to begin with. Eventually, your routines will become habits.
Activities
Time needed per day 30 minutes
Imagination and playfulness are the only things that set the limit for what activities can be done, here are some examples of what you can do and keep in mind that you must of course adapt to your circumstances.
- When you left the tram a stop earlier than usual, take a walk through a park.
When you go to work, school, friends or the forest. Jump off a stop earlier and walk for a while through a park. If you can, walk slower than usual.
- Sit down in some stairs and let the world rush by.
We are called Strength stairs for a reason, stairs are an extremely good tool for recovery. So have a seat in a nearby staircase and look at the world pass by while you are just in the moment.
- Stop and stand still for a while.
Where you are, stand on both legs for a while. Let it be easy or boring, close your eyes and get in touch with your breath.
- Massage in all its forms
Give yourself a massage where you feel it is needed. Just giving your temples a massage can calm you down a bit. Of course you can go to a professional masseuse/masseur for a proper rubbing of your sore muscles.
- Stretch after taking the wheelchair on an extra mile.
Stretch your arms when you have gone a little further than usual.
- Look at children playing, preferably your own to avoid misunderstandings, for a while.
Kids can teach us adults a lot about being in the moment, not having multiple tasks that needs attention.
- Take extra pauses in intense periods
Even if you are in the middle of something, it is good to just walk away from time to time to both let your eyes do something other than focus on something close to you and to let your brain and body have a break. Take a coffee break and just talk to another person for example, or look out a window for a while.
- Take a day of resting.
Take a break completely from training one day if the body says it is worn out. If you listen to the body and let it replenish its energy stores, it will thank you because it lasts longer and you will succeed even better in the long run..
- Socialize
Find your way back to the conversation with a capital S, you know where everyone is talking and listening and where time goes fast. Top up with social energy together with family, friends or other people.
- Sleep
We need sleep for full recovery, so make sure you get both your night’s sleep and a nap if you think you need it.
Of course, there are more disabilities than those in wheelchairs as in suggestion #5, so take it for what it is, examples and suggestions of what you can come up with.
Recuperation can be achieved everywhere
The basic advice is “Preferably outdoors and close to or in nature”. Where you get inspired and where the opportunity arise.
Home, at work, in school, on a bus, in the car, on the bike. If you drive or for that matter you cycle, it is obvious that you park in a safe place for a moment of contemplation and rest.
Target group
Healthy people who recover to seldom or inadequate, who feel the need to get started and who want to make a lasting change for their health.
On https://www.1177.se/Vastra-Gotaland/liv–halsa/stresshantering-och-somn/avslappning-for-hela-kroppen/ you can find more about the activities to help motivate you to get your change started (in Swedish and you can see a Google Translate in English here.)
Inspiration
Here is a list of links with that can be used as inspiration:
- Passive and active recovery – our theme page about recovery.
- Good and enough sleep – our theme page about sleep.
- Smart triples – a page with short and smart recovery sessions.
- Why we talk about exercising the breath – a post about how breath can improve your recovery.
- Use your senses for maximum mental recovery – a post about how to use your senses to maximize recovery.
- Principal physical recovery
- Principal mental recovery
Summary
- You can rest and take breaks without thinking about it.
- Be patient and just do, vips you have created one or more habits.
- You become more alert in both the body and the bud when you get more recovery into your life.
- Keep it simple, weave your recovery into everyday life, it will be sustainable over time.
- Share thoughts and recovery with others, give and receive pepper!
- And hey, do one thing at a time!