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Would you like to wake up in the morning feeling more refreshed? Or have more focus and energy during the day? You may not want to hear it, but exercise is key to all of that. It’s time to get started exercising.

But maybe you’ve never exercised before or regularly played a sport. Or you’ve never been into the fitness crowd, or you use the excuse that you’re far too busy to even think about exercise. Or you don’t know how to get started exercising? In other words, you’re just not into it.

Of course, your friends talk about it and rave about the latest fitness craze, but you’ve seen it too often. Some are on the “on-again-off-again” treadmill/elliptical/Peloton mania. And you wonder why they haven’t shed the fat they’re desperately trying to hide. Seeing what your friends go through and not seeing any results, perhaps you cling to the notion that your total lack of interest is justified. As a result, you don’t make any effort to exercise. 

Any of that sound familiar?

There’s so much more to exercise than doing it to lose weight. You need to look beyond that and notice all the other benefits exercise provides. To get started, you first need to accept that exercise is good for your overall health. Once you’ve done that, you can consider how you can include it in your life. 

Top three health concerns

The top three health concerns that people face today are easily preventable with a balanced diet and regular exercise: osteoporosis, heart disease, and diabetes. And it goes beyond that. You can add brain health to that list. 

When I interviewed several women and asked them about their primary health concerns, brain health often was at the top of their list, or at least in the top three. Granted, it wasn’t a scientific study, but the fact that women account for 2/3rds of Alzheimer’s patients has it high on their radar. Additionally, often women have been the ones to care for an aging parent with dementia. They don’t want it happening to them because they have seen what it has done to their loved one. 

Benefits of exercise

If you make exercise a regular part of your day, you’ll quickly experience some noticeable general benefits.

These include:

• Waking up in the morning feeling refreshed

• Having energy left at the end of the day

• Feeling more optimistic about recreation

• Sleeping more soundly at night

• Being more focused

As it pertains to the benefits to brain health specifically: exercise increases blood flow to the brain; increases our gray matter; increases the size of our hippocampus and; helps create more brain cells. All of which enables you to process, think, remember, learn and focus better. You’re brighter and sharper as a result. Not to mention that it protects your cognitive function as you age. The benefits to our brain health alone, I believe, are an incentive to start exercising. 

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Four ways to get started exercising

If you don’t currently work out, how do you get started exercising? Here are four easy-to-implement ways you can incorporate fitness into your daily life to get started exercising.

1. Cubicle or office fitness

Just as ergonomic experts recommend that office workers take their eyes off their computer screen every hour, fitness experts advocate getting up from your chair and taking a brisk walk every hour. If you can get outside even better, but I understand that managers may frown upon it if you’re leaving the building every hour. So, walk around the floor or up and down the stairs. 

Back in my corporate days, I remember running from one meeting to the next, from one floor to another. If that’s you, take the stairs rather than the elevator. At the time, I never considered the exercise I was getting walking from meeting to meeting. But I was. So next time you’re fed up with all your meetings, appreciate the fact that it’s allowing you to move and get in some steps.

If your job isn’t one to take you away from your desk, make sure to make a concerted effort to get away for 5 minutes or so every hour. It also helps to clear your brain and help you focus better. You could even consider scheduling it on your calendar so you don’t get lost in your work and forget about it. 

2. Family exercises

When you join your family in their activities on the weekends, try to integrate exercise into these activities. If the children or grandchildren are into cycling, join them for bike rides. Or maybe get in a game of pickleball with the family, which is now all the rage. 

Are they off to their swimming, skating, or golf lessons? See if you take a walk outside the recreational center while waiting for them. When possible, plan active rather than passive activities together. Do something you can all do. 

3. Chores are workouts!

Who says you can’t burn calories while doing gardening or housework? Take a breather from your hectic schedule and devote some downtime to tending to your lawn, trimming your rose bushes, scrubbing the kitchen and bathroom floors, etc. And it’s not just calories; it’s getting you to move and get your blood flowing. You’ll feel good knowing that you are not only being productive, but you’re also getting exercise. 

4. Walk, don’t drive!

Park your car far away to walk to your office’s front door, the mall entrance, the doctor’s office, and the post office. Or maybe the coffee shop you go to is close enough. Consider walking instead of driving. We are so accustomed to driving everywhere that we forget walking is an option. All those extra steps help. 

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How do you get started exercising? Just start

Remember, you need to start somewhere, and the key is just to start. Start by incorporating 10-20 minutes of movement a day that you wouldn’t normally do and watch your health increase! Remember, a walk or kicking a ball is exercise too! 

Once you develop a habit and feel good about what you’re doing, you can build it up from there. Once you start feeling better, you’ll want to do it. And along the way, remember the benefits exercise has on brain health as a motivator. 

The first step is to get started and keep it consistent. 

As Nike famously says, “Just do it.”