Man Repeller’s recent round-up of popular workout options was peppered with wonderful gifs of exercises you can do anywhere. They take our penchant for improvised plein air exercise to a fab, curiously useful extreme. The memorable images show your really CAN be working out sans gym or special equipment/clothes.
Read MoreDaily Exercise Routine: Dancing, Leaping, Frolicking, Joy
What if, instead of going to the gym, dancing, leaping, frolicking and joy became our exercise routine? We can’t help think it would have a big liberating impact on our daily life and work.
Read Moreexercise averse? outdoors (even a park) is your gym
I used to know a brilliant Reichian therapist who disdained exercise machines. “They make the body stupid”, she said. She believed that physical exercise should take the form of conscious, pleasurable movement that had a reason, not something done mindlessly while watching tv or reading. I’ve thought of this often as I’ve wondered at my…
Read Moreskipping as exercise (we dare you to try it)
(Video link here.) The other day I was in the park across the way doing my ad-hoc workout while listening to the great Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan’s My Heart, My Life on my iPhone. (Click to listen while you read.) There was NO WAY I couldn’t dance to that music. Suddenly skipping seemed like the rhythmically perfect move to make.…
Read Morehula hoop dreams (exercise as play)
A post in Zen Habits echoed what we’ve been thinking lately: I don’t do boring exercise. If I hate doing something, I stop doing it. I don’t have enough life left to waste doing stuff I hate. A big part of blogging is sitting on your ass, surfing thrillingly, but virtually; we don’t get enough…
Read Morehula-hooping as life-changing exercise
A while ago, we noticed a woman walking down the street with two brightly-colored hula hoops balanced on her shoulder. We ran after her to find out what she was doing with them, and where she was heading. She told us she was going to practice hula hooping, to which she was devoted. She called…
Read More“get up off that thing”: improv exercise for home or work
We’ve gotten a little lazy of late, since we dislike going to the gym (yellow walls with black floors under florescent lights) and we spend so many long hours at our desks. We could get stymied by our slide into laziness by comparing ourselves to all those buff self-disciplined people that faithfully climb onto the…
Read MoreLaraaji’s 3-Minute Laughter Meditation
In addition to some interesting music, we found a fat nugget in “Shocking the Consciousness”, Amanda Petrushich’s piece on 80-year-old radical/New Age composer Laraaji in The New Yorker: His online laughter meditations designed to help you generate your own medicinal sound.
Read MoreDept of X-Ray Vision: How to See Time
Time management educator Marydee Sklar helps entrepreneurs and other scattered creative types develop a kind of x-ray vision to antidote their often inefficient and energy-draining work habits. I’ve found the essential principles of her method mightily useful, in tandem with poet Naomi Shihab Nye’s approach.
Read MoreErling Kagge on ‘The Secret Bond Between Slowness And Memory, Emotion, Intelligence’
“The pace we choose when we walk can be decisive for how we think”, writes explorer and philospher Erling Kagge in Walking One Step at a Time. Apply it more broadly and it becomes a startling life principle that can profoundly shift everyday experience…
Read MoreWe Celebrate Our National Voice (Patti Smith, U2)
Perhaps the most heartening victory of the fiercely contested national election is the record-breaking turnout of voters braving long waits and the coronavirus to exercise their VOICE. We can think of no better celebration than the anthem Patti Smith wrote in 1988…
Read MoreEssentials for Voters from Patti Smith, Jenny Holzer, Sojourner Truth…
We’ve been seeing a lot of very cool VOTE images from artists peppering the instagrams of arts galleries and museums. Here’s a trove along with essential resources for planning your vote.
Read MoreHow Much Of Care is Patience? and Other Questions (Chloe Bass)
Compelling signs have appeared in St. Nicholas Park in Harlem, part of the exhibition “Wayfinding” by conceptual artist Chloe Bass. Each asks a powerful question to carry into the week…
Read MoreOver-Glasses Sunglasses for Instant RX Sunglasses and Virus Protection
I first became enamored of sunglasses worn OVER prescription glasses when I saw my friend Fran Black* wearing a pair; I suddenly noticed that there was a pair of glasses underneath her sunglasses. That’s just what I need, I thought, so I hunted a pair down. They made my life way easier. I didn’t have…
Read More4-Minute Workout For Sheltering in Place (Like an Hour at the Gym)
This simple four-minute workout routine yields the same benefits as working out in the gym for an hour. It’s proving terrific exercise when sheltering in place due to the Coronavirus.
Read MoreA 16-Second Film’s Moment of Zen Sparks Haiku and a Writing Practice
In this 16 second film, a blow torch + hair dryer + popcorn makes for a curiously zen moment. We found two haiku to go with it. Then we remembered our friend Tim Chegwidden’s timed poetry-writing practice…
Read MoreWhat to Do When Sleep is Like an Angry Sea (Simple Things that Help You Sleep)
Charlotte Arene’s remarkable stop motion animation captures the restless agitation of not sleeping well as though roiled by an angry sea. It’s a feeling many of us know well. Here is my list of tiny steps that can help you sleep, learned by trying them on myself.
Read MoreWhat is Your Medicine?
Recently, a doctor I know asked me the remarkable question “What is your medicine”. The answers have nothing to do with pills and are unique to each of us, surprising and powerful.
Read MoreAn Analog Kid’s Timer Increases Focus and Productivity
The simple, clever Time Timer has proven a useful visual aid that helps me focus on whatever I need to make headway with, and then get up and take a break, disrupting the obsessive overfocus I’m prone to. It helps me work more efficiently, with less stress.
Read MoreHow to Look After Yourself
We found this great, simple list on DoLectures’ twitter and find it a helpful reminder for small ways to navigate the day in balance:
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