With Regular Exercise, You’ll Get the Most out of Your Valuable Time
When it comes to being more productive and maximizing your time, apps and workflow management tools can only help so much. Maybe you’re trying to adjust your schedule to make your busy days less hectic, or perhaps you’re trying everything you can to be more productive but it’s not working out quite as planned.
The strategy to being more productive may not even lie in your day-to-day workflow routine. You may have been looking in the wrong place this whole time! If you’ve modified and structured your days to increase efficiency and you’re still finding yourself in a perpetual time crunch and not reaching goals, then keep on reading.
A Natural Productivty Booster
Studies suggest that with regular exercise, you not only boost your productivity, but improve the quality of what you produce too. It goes without saying that leading a healthy and active lifestyle is a wholesome balance of a few factors, especially daily exercise. This balance has an inherent advantage to your productivity as well.
Those who are regimented with their physical activity and dedicate time to daily exercise discovered that they:
- Were able to concentrate and focus easier on the task at hand
- Finished their work early or on-time
- Feel more motivated to work
- All of these = increased productivity
Why? Because as you burn energy while moving your body during exercise, this naturally reduces fatigue. There are many ways to explain this process, but we always like to use the analogy of a river versus a swamp. When your body is in motion, this begins to allow energy to move throughout your body like a flowing river. When you are stagnant and inactive, things just kind of remain still. You feel lethargic without much desire to work on anything. Using this analogy it is easy to see that when you are moving, you feel better, more content, and more equipped to take on the day. It’s when you are sedentary and inactive that you feel the most restless, agitated, and have difficulty concentrating which does not help efficiency at all.
“The way to get started is to quit trying and begin doing” - Walt Disney
Why Exercise is Imperative to Productivity
Each time you push your limits in your workout, you are increasing your energy capacity as well, both mentally and physically. Exercise has proven to increase mental sharpness and when your brain is functioning at full capacity, you naturally perform better in the task at hand. When you aren’t moving or exercising, you are not taking care of your mental well-being. In turn, you can struggle with productivity because you simply are not motivated to work.
Which Forms of Exercise are Best for Productivity?
Let’s take a look at what forms of exercise you can integrate into your everyday schedule to increase productivity.
- Yoga
The core principles of yoga - relaxation, breathing, positive thinking, meditating, diet, and exercise - help to improve productivity and are proven to have positive outcomes on motivation, self-esteem and your capacity to manage stress because it has been shown to increase the ability to problem-solve.
- Strength Training
Many people experience that amazing feeling after an intense resistance training workout. Strength training that targets the major muscles and movements of the body. You don’t need access to an entire home gym anymore. You can accomplish this in the comfort of your own home with a couple of kettlebells. Strength training also has huge brain benefits and has been shown to increase memory and memory span.
- Walking
You’ve probably heard this before, but if yoga and strength training aren’t for you yet, at least get out and walk! Walking for just 30 minutes a day has proven to have a positive overall influence on both the body and mind including feeling more creative, more relaxed, less anxious and nervous at work, and less fatigued when mid-day hits. Instead of going back to the coffee maker after lunch, try stepping out for a brisk walk instead and get back to work with more focus so you can experience better productivity. For a bonus productivity boost on your walk, check out our friend Carolyn Cohen’s podcast, “Wellness While Walking” which is a great way to receive some great positive information while you exercise.
“Physical exercise promotes positive self-image,
high-productivity, and energetic well-being”
- Lailah Gifty Akita
The Bottom Line
At EPOCH, we aren’t trying to convince you that exercise is beneficial, this is already a fact! We want you to truly understand and experience the advantages of being active and leading a healthy, balanced lifestyle. We want you to experience the myriad of other great effects of engaging in exercise and committing to self-care. With only the basic tools and knowledge base needed, you can and will reach your goals and begin to live a little more durable.