Continuing in this weeks series of ‘7 Days of Simple Activities That Help You Lose Weight and Feel Great’ today we move to focus on playing more. When was the last time you felt free and uninhibited?
Day 6: today we are focusing on Playing More
As children we are naturally inquisitive and explore and play without inhibition, but I know as I grew older I lost this ability focused more on doing and achieving. Playing is so important to us and like other activities this week is a great way to take your focus away from dieting and they also reduce your stress and as I’ve talked about before stress is terrible for weight loss as well as your health.
Four Activities
1. Take Part in 53 Million Artists: After recently attending a talk with one of the founders of this project I fell in love with the idea immediately. Basically the premise is that everyone has some kind of creative or artistic part within them and if we give ourselves time to try things we might just find it within us. They aim to create 53 million artists (i.e. the population of the UK) by visiting workplaces, prisons and old folks homes. They have ideas on their website or you can start your own project and share the results via social media. I recently took a challenge of stopping everything I was doing, looking at the sky and taking a photo every day at 2pm and 9pm. Not only were the photos pretty fun it also snapped me into the present moment twice a day.
2. Rediscover What You Loved as a Child: Think back to when you were young. What did you love doing? Maybe it was it colouring in, ballet, playing the clarinet or something else. Chances are, even if you’ve let it lapse, you will still love it in some way. I recently bought this adult colouring in book full of intricate flowery designs and some nice colouring pens and pencils and it’s so relaxing to take 10 minutes and just colour. Maybe it’s time to take a ballet lesson or dust off your old instrument. I’m off to book a horse riding lesson!
3. Go on a Swing: or a slide, skip, run down a hill like Phoebe on Friends, play hopscotch or better still all of them! I went on a swing for the first time in years and loved it. I also recently went on a waterslide and although I was a good 20 years older than most of the other people on it (apart from ‘The Boy’) I had so much fun! Give it a go and see what you think.
4. Listen to this TED Talk: Ben Hyde talks all about playing more. Not only does it make you feel good apparently it also boosts creatively and risk taking so it’s might well help your job too!
If you’ve missed a day, don’t worry you can catch up here.
How could you be more childlike? Let me know in the comments below or via Facebook.
Photo Credit: Davidlohr Bueso