Discover Easy Home Exercises To Stay Healthy During Movement Control Order

As the third phase of our movement control order commences, some of us may seem to get more and more agitated with the idea of being home-bound. This leads to stress eating and for some, binge drinking. There are no gyms or swimming pools that are open to release our stress. A sedentary lifestyle can be detrimental to both our physical and mental health. Hence, it is important for us to remain active despite being stuck at home. 

Being active can reduce your blood pressure, cholesterol, and weight. This may decrease your chances of getting heart diseases, stroke, and diabetes. Strength training can help maintain muscle mass and bone density, thus reducing the risk of sarcopenia or osteoporosis. If you are a healthy person or you have chronic illnesses, exercising will help you maintain good health regardless of your age.

Another important benefit of physical activity is that it helps flush out bacteria from the lungs and airway. It also increases the ‘soldiers’ of our immune system, white blood cells, and our core body temperature which both works in favor of warding off the bacterial or viral infection. As for its mental health-preserving role, physical activities increase endorphins(feel-good hormone) and lowers cortisol which is a stress hormone.

There are many home exercises that can be done during this lockdown period. If you are already a gym junkie or a fitness lover, you probably miss going to the gym where there are many equipment used to assist your training and help create the whole workout mood. With a little bit of creativity, you can still recreate the mood of being in a gym and perform your exercises. Create weight training equipment from items you can find at home like a bag of rice, heavy tires, mineral water bottles or even carrying someone else like the children safely. It’s all in the power of creativity and how motivated you are to keep fit.

For cardiovascular health, you can simply walk around the house or up the stairs for a mild exercise. For more intense activity, grab a skipping rope and skip continuously for 5 minutes or longer, depending on your capability. Another fun way to increase your heart rate is by dancing! This is an amazing activity that you can even include your children or partner. Blast up your favourite music and sweat it out while you execute your best moves. It is suggested that you exercise at least 30 minutes a day, five times a week for good cardiovascular health.

Besides those mentioned above, there are other interesting physical activities that you may try. These include yoga, tai chi, pilates and so on. These will build your flexibility, stability and also strength. You may also build your muscle strength by doing resistance exercises with your resistance band if you have one. Otherwise, you can just perform your squats, lunges and hip thrusts with only your weight.

With all these efforts in aiming to stay fit, do not forget to include healthy meals to further boost up your health. You are what you eat. Help your body immunity by eating food loaded with Vitamin C such as guava, oranges, kiwi, pineapples and more. Cut down on empty calories like junkfood and also fast food. Fried food may be the most convenient food for you to cook but it will only increase your bad cholesterols. Keep your diet synergistic with your exercise plan to stay fit during this period.