Speaker 1: Oh hello, welcome to Healthy Ish. You have tuned into
Speaker 1: our summer series. This, of course is your podcast from
Speaker 1: Body and Soul. I'm your host of Felicity Harley.
Speaker 2: Yes.
Speaker 1: To celebrate the hot season, we are dropping our top
Speaker 1: Healthyish episodes in twenty twenty four. This one was a
Speaker 1: good eye because I think all of us at some
Speaker 1: stage feel the three pm slump. Well, a lot of
Speaker 1: us every day. And I was joined back in February
Speaker 1: by workplace wellness expert and ted X speaker Lizzie Williamson.
Speaker 1: She's a certified PT and she's energized thousands of people
Speaker 1: along her well career journey, and she joined us to
Speaker 1: share fun micro moves to boost your work mood and
Speaker 1: increase productivity, particularly valuable in this time of year, don't
Speaker 1: you think anyway, make sure you're listening to Extra Healthy
Speaker 1: Ish as well, where she shares more about the active
Speaker 1: work day advantages. It's a little philosophy that she lives by.
Speaker 1: You can search for Extra Healthy Ish wherever you get
Speaker 1: your podcasts. Lizzie, Welcome to healthy Ish.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much.
Speaker 1: I was looking forward to interviewing today because I need
Speaker 1: a bit of energy in my life and I feel
Speaker 1: like you are just bursting with it.
Speaker 2: I've got some tips and hacks for you.
Speaker 1: Okay, good to bring it on, But let's talk about
Speaker 1: specifically exercised, because I feel like this is this is
Speaker 1: your sweet spot now. Sometimes, you know, we get to
Speaker 1: the end of the week, we look back and realize
Speaker 1: we've done little or no exercise. We're like, what when
Speaker 1: did I last go to the gym or go for
Speaker 1: a run, or even go for a walk. And then
Speaker 1: the next week comes and I mean, now we all
Speaker 1: know how important exercise is, not just for our physical
Speaker 1: and mental health, how do we fit it in? Why
Speaker 1: do we first thing, why do we find it so
Speaker 1: hard to fit in?
Speaker 2: So many things get in our way. I mean, we
Speaker 2: have got big lies going on. We have got times
Speaker 2: where we feel so fatigued and we just can't find
Speaker 2: that motivation. Sometimes struggling mentally and exercise can be really hard. Then,
Speaker 2: but here's the thing. We have got so many rules
Speaker 2: about what exercise has to look like, that it has
Speaker 2: to be this certain hour or half an hour, it
Speaker 2: has to be at this certain gym class or yoga class.
Speaker 2: We have to be wearing our fancy active Where give
Speaker 2: us these certain results. And so when exercise doesn't fit
Speaker 2: into that box, into the rules that we think it
Speaker 2: has to look like, then what do we do that day? Nothing?
Speaker 2: And so when we are so stuck in that rules
Speaker 2: and that mindset of this exercise has to be this
Speaker 2: separate thing and all of these rules, and if something
Speaker 2: gets in our way of doing it, whether that's time, energy, motivation,
Speaker 2: then it just all feels too hard and we think, Okay,
Speaker 2: well we can't do this exercise thing today.
Speaker 1: We'll do it next week and then next Monday, oh no, no,
Speaker 1: the beginning of next month, oh no, no, next year. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So we just procrastinate. How specifically can a lack of
Speaker 1: exercise packed our workday.
Speaker 2: Well, we know from research that sitting for long periods
Speaker 2: of time, this prolonged sitting without breaks, can actually take
Speaker 2: years off our life potentially, And the World Health Organization
Speaker 2: has put workplaces at this high priority for breaking up
Speaker 2: long hours of sitting with movement. It's in all our
Speaker 2: government guidelines. It's everywhere we need to sit a bit
Speaker 2: less and move a little bit more. So the impact
Speaker 2: isn't just physical on our longevity, but also when you're
Speaker 2: sitting there at work and your lower backs is really
Speaker 2: kind of aching because you haven't moved for ages, your shoulders,
Speaker 2: your neck, you're tight. That's not really very much fun.
Speaker 2: And then you've also got the mental stuff as well,
Speaker 2: and the mindset and the soul stuff, because when we're
Speaker 2: not physically active, we just don't feel as great. We
Speaker 2: get more lethargic, our body goes into sleep mode, our
Speaker 2: brain doesn't operate in the way that it's designed to do.
Speaker 2: We miss out in a way of all these incredible
Speaker 2: benefits that physical activity give us in our day.
Speaker 1: I love in the beginning that you said it's all
Speaker 1: in the guidelines. It's in the guidelines people, it's there,
Speaker 1: But are we actually doing it? No? So how can we?
Speaker 1: Because often, you know, if you're in an office job specifically,
Speaker 1: I mean a lot of people do stand all day.
Speaker 1: Obviously you know, nurses and doctors and whatever. But if
Speaker 1: you're specifically in an office job and you're sitting all day,
Speaker 1: or you're sitting at home, you get into the flow
Speaker 1: of work, or you think I need to bash this
Speaker 1: out because a deadline is looming. You stress, you forget
Speaker 1: that you should be moving, and then all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: it's three hours and you're still sitting there. How can
Speaker 1: we get how can we interrupt our workflow, our workloads
Speaker 1: and get more movement in you know, those three hours
Speaker 1: that we may be sitting still.
Speaker 2: First of all, it's a mindset that we've got to
Speaker 2: look at how these little things we do, these little
Speaker 2: micro moves, micro breaks, how they actually are really important
Speaker 2: and they really do count. There's this show that I
Speaker 2: can't believe I've gotten into on Netflix called Drive to Survive.
Speaker 2: It's about Formula ones. Have you seen it?
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 2: Okay, I never thought i'd be into Formula one drivers,
Speaker 2: But when I watch it with my family and I
Speaker 2: see these drivers on the track and they are racing
Speaker 2: to that finish line and every millisecond counts for them,
Speaker 2: high performers, and yet they're called to box. They've got
Speaker 2: to go and take this pit stop because their tires
Speaker 2: are running out or something's happened with their engine or
Speaker 2: their vehicle. And of course I imagine they're on that
Speaker 2: track not wanting to get off. They just want to
Speaker 2: get there, but they know that that is a thing
Speaker 2: that they need to do to get their vehicle back
Speaker 2: in this prime way to get them across that finish line.
Speaker 2: It's the same thing for us. We think that, oh no,
Speaker 2: we can't stop because we've got to get going. We've
Speaker 2: got to keep going. We've got to get this dead undone.
Speaker 2: So we've got some semblance of work life balance. But
Speaker 2: if we were to take these little pit stops and
Speaker 2: take care of our vehicle, which is our bodies and
Speaker 2: our brain and our mood, then we would get to
Speaker 2: that finish line in a much better way.
Speaker 1: Actually, that's a great analogy. I was just I have
Speaker 1: actually been in the pits during the Grand Prix down
Speaker 1: in Melbourne a couple of years ago. I can't even
Speaker 1: remember the driver at the time, but it was quite phenomenal.
Speaker 1: How such a short stop and then all of a
Speaker 1: sudden they're fueled off and I think the I can't
Speaker 1: even it was Lewis Hamilton anyway, someone like that. It
Speaker 1: was phenomenal experience. But that's a perfect analogy for just
Speaker 1: taking that short break. Now you say there's a two
Speaker 1: minute trick that we can do in our workday to
Speaker 1: take that break.
Speaker 2: What is it? Before I had postnatal depression fifteen years ago,
Speaker 2: I always thought that the way that exercise had to
Speaker 2: be and had to count and to make you feel
Speaker 2: good was you know, you really have to get out
Speaker 2: half an hour, an hour whatever. And the problem was,
Speaker 2: at that time I could not get myself to exercise anymore.
Speaker 2: And so what I started doing was just saying to myself,
Speaker 2: just do two minutes. That's all you have to do.
Speaker 2: Here on your kitchen bench, do a few push ups.
Speaker 2: I used to be a dancer, so I do a
Speaker 2: few PLA's And I tell you that two minutes still
Speaker 2: felt really hard, but it really then made me feel
Speaker 2: like I was achieving something. I was doing something for me,
Speaker 2: And so then this ripple effect happened from that taking
Speaker 2: this little two minute then meant that I was feeling
Speaker 2: a bit more late in the day, Okay, maybe I
Speaker 2: want to move again. Sometimes as the months went past,
Speaker 2: that two minutes became more minutes. Just do two minutes
Speaker 2: or less, because two minutes is so much better than
Speaker 2: no minutes, because it helps to build that momentum.
Speaker 1: There's a great quote that just came to me when
Speaker 1: you were talking. It's from as I think it's psychotherapist
Speaker 1: Emma Murray. She has a quote that motion chain into emotion,
Speaker 1: and your two minute trick is that move it changes
Speaker 1: how you feel, how you look. So what are some
Speaker 1: little two minute moves that we can do in our
Speaker 1: day without feeling ridiculous in front of our workmates.
Speaker 2: So so kicked simple. You can keep this really really small,
Speaker 2: and in fact, you can actually do a lot of
Speaker 2: this stuff without even anyone knowing that you are exercising
Speaker 2: or moving at work. So say, for example, you're starting
Speaker 2: to feel a bit tight in your body. You can
Speaker 2: feel it in your back. So imagine you've dropped a
Speaker 2: couple of pens on the ground. Next you just got
Speaker 2: to pick something up, or you got to plug your
Speaker 2: charge in under your desk. You lean over to one side,
Speaker 2: pick it on up, and lean over the other side,
Speaker 2: and that just gets your spine out of that same position.
Speaker 2: You reach up one arm and how great that is. Now,
Speaker 2: if you're listening, you can just reach up the other arm,
Speaker 2: and how good that feels to just stretch out your
Speaker 2: We're reaching, Yes, we start reaching. You can imagine what
Speaker 2: is you're reaching for. Imagine if you are about to
Speaker 2: come on a podcast with the incredible Felicity Hard, you're
Speaker 2: feeling a little bit nervous, or you about have to
Speaker 2: go give a presentation, the way we hold our body
Speaker 2: makes a big difference to the way that we feel.
Speaker 2: And then of course walking is super powerful. If you're there,
Speaker 2: think oh, I can't come up with this idea for
Speaker 2: this email or this project. There's a study by Stanford
Speaker 2: University that says that compared to sitting, walking increases creative
Speaker 2: output by sixty percent, and those creative juices continue to
Speaker 2: flow after you've sat back down. You don't even have
Speaker 2: to go outside. It's all those little moments that may
Speaker 2: not look like exercise as you know it, but they're
Speaker 2: still getting your body physically active. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Amen to the Lizzie, Thank you for coming Unhealthy, Thank you,
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to this interview. As part of
Speaker 1: our twenty twenty four summer series, there are plenty more
Speaker 1: awesome epps for your ears, both from Healthy Ish and
Speaker 1: our big sister podcast Extra healthy Ish. If you did
Speaker 1: like this interview, please take equipment to share it with friend.
Speaker 1: If you do want any other info, head to bodyansoul
Speaker 1: dot com dot you followus on socials. Any feedback please
Speaker 1: dm me at Felicity Harley and until tomorrow, enjoy the
Speaker 1: sun and stay healthy.