12 Tips for Menopause-Friendly Holidays – TIP #8: MOVE MORE SIT LESS

Move regularly! Move more sit less!

Exercise at least 5 days a week, 30 minutes per day, or break it up into 10-minute chunks throughout the day.

Physical activity reduces stress and boosts your brain function, mood, and immune system.

Women in midlife should do appropriate exercises regularly:

• Aerobic activity (e.g. walking briskly or jogging) helps maintain a healthy weight.
• Strength-training (e.g. resistance bands or light weights) reduces body fat and strengthens muscles.
• Stability and balance exercises (e. g. tai chi and yoga) help prevent falls and fractures.
• Gentle stretching improves flexibility and helps reduce injuries.

Make it fun and sustainable.

If you have an exercise routine, do your best to stick with it through the holiday season. It will improve your wellbeing and possibly your menopause symptoms as well.

Here are five reasons why you don’t want to give up exercise:

• Exercise makes you happier and healthier to endure the holiday demands
• Exercise keeps you from putting on weight
• Exercise is good for your brain because it increases blood circulation to your brain, making your thinking sharper (less menopause brain fog)
• Exercise improves sleep
• Exercise releases endorphins, neurotransmitters that boost mental health.

If you don’t have an exercise routine then today is a good time to start one.

What do you like to do physically? Walking? Dancing? Running? Exercise online classes? All this is possible to do even during the pandemic and at home.

I discovered these two websites in March and follow their exercises often, check them out:

Yoga With Adriene

 20 minute full body workout.

Go for walks outside as often as you can. It’s good for your body especially if you walk after meals (which burns calories and decreases weight gain).  It’s as simple as move more sit less!

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Exercising regularly doesn’t have to mean being a gym rat.

One of the most common New Year’s resolutions must surely be to exercise more. Many of us have made this decision and congrats to you if you are still exercising regularly by June!

The main thing is to move more sit less — read more here. My exercise expert guest speaker believes that balance exercise is also fundamental.

Get a WHIM (Women’s Health In Midlife) Network membership and learn how to improve your balance to reduce falls and fractures.

Happy Holidays!