Live Your Empowered Life with One Minute Exercise
Live Your Empowered Life with One Minute Exercise
By Ilchi Lee
Although I’ve been fit and healthy since my youth, as I started to get older, I naturally felt the effects of aging—declining physical energy, muscle strength, reflexes, eyesight, and more. Having to deal with a busy schedule of reading dozens of reports, meeting numerous people, and giving lectures from dawn to dusk every day, however, I didn’t have enough time to go to a fitness center and work out. I couldn’t afford to lose a minute of my precious time.
So I started exercising for just one minute at a time, wherever I was and whatever I was doing. For instance, after washing my hands in the bathroom, I do push-ups against the wall. When sitting in a chair and working, I use my fists or fingers to raise and lower my body repeatedly. Or I do bear walking, crawling on my hands and the soles of my feet.
As I’ve kept this up over time, my body has became lighter, more agile, and more vigorous. Even now, at 67 years old, every day I use the wall to do 10 handstand push-ups. And when I golf, I send the ball flying farther and more accurately than I did when I was in my forties.
One Minute Can Change Your Life
To make this One-Minute Exercise technique part of your day, at least once an hour do a minute of moderate to vigorous exercise that effectively works your muscles and raises your heart rate in a short period of time, such as push-ups, squats, sit-ups, jumping jacks, jumping in place, or bear walking. It’s a good idea to set an alarm to go off every hour to remind you. That means you’ll do a minute of exercise about 10 times a day.
Doing a moderate to high intensity workout during those minutes may cause muscle pain, so when that happens, mix in gentle exercises such as stretching instead of strength training. If you have a physical disability or disease, exercise in a way that’s right for the state of your health and body.
There’s no reason you have to do just one minute of exercise, though. You can do it for five minutes or 10 minutes if you’d like. When you have the time, combining several exercises will double the effects. For example, if you do bear walking after push-ups or squats, you’ll experience the effects of high-intensity exercise, which increases heart rate, lung capacity, and body temperature and trains muscle strength.
But if conditions aren’t right for longer exercise, invest at least one minute. A minute seems like a short time that blows right past without much meaning, but you won’t believe how long it feels when you actually do push-ups or try to hold your breath for a minute. You’ll soon learn the value of a minute, and also by breaking up your day this way, you’ll be more motivated to use each hour more productively and creatively.
Besides filling your body with vigor, raising your body temperature and making yourself sweat in one minute also reins in your mind. Your mind will really wake up and become alert after one minute of exercise. Your distracting thoughts will disappear and your concentration will increase.
An important point of One-Minute Exercise is that exercise should be incorporated into daily life, not separated from it. In other words, life is exercise, and exercise is life. Your commitment to One-Minute Exercise will change your lifestyle, the very way you live, to develop a constitution and habits that make you healthy. Think of it as taking the sword of your will and striking down old habits and then introducing new habits by constantly repeating new, positive actions. Over time, you’ll develop confidence and passion for your life.
One-Minute Exercise is an intentional action to focus on yourself, be present, and be mindful. Once you start doing it, you will naturally start to care about other areas of your life as well. When you manage your physical condition, you end up managing your time, emotions, and goals, and these come together as life management. Through One-Minute Exercise, you can become empowered with the confidence and passion to take responsibility for your health and create your life at any age.
Excerpted with permission of the publisher, Best Life Media, from I’ve Decided to Live 120 Years: The Ancient Secret to Longevity, Vitality, and Life Transformation by Ilchi Lee. Copyright © 2017 by Ilchi Lee. All rights reserved. You can learn more about the book at Live120YearsBook.com.
About Ilchi Lee
Ilchi Lee is a visionary, educator, and author who has penned more than 40 books, including The New York Times bestseller The Call of Sedona: Journey of the Heart. He founded the mind-body practices of Body & Brain Yoga and Brain Education and established the Earth Citizen Movement. His principles and methods have helped millions of people globally expand their true potential. For more information, visit www.ilchi.com.
Category: Blog
