Health is wealth, and one of the ways to improve and maintain your health is by keeping your body fit through exercise. Exercise involves intentional activities and repeated movements that help you maintain a healthy weight, burn excess calories, strengthen your muscles, and keep your body in peak condition. Also, exercising regularly strengthens the heart and bones, improves lung function, boosts mood, lowers blood pressure, reduces anxiety, increases energy, and improves sleep. Exercise can manage and reduce the risk of certain diseases like diabetes, hypertension, osteoporosis, depression, and dementia. Despite the numerous rewards of regular exercise, many perceive it as tedious, painful, and even expensive.

As such, they avoid exercise altogether or opt for quick fixes to achieve their fitness goals. Keeping physically fit can be enjoyable. Done at home, in the workplace, or anywhere, you can work out exercise routines that require no equipment, cost no exorbitant gym membership fees, and can be seamlessly integrated into your daily life. Here are some examples.

• Walking & Running: Walking, jogging, and running not only help you stay fit but also prompt your body to release endorphins, popularly known as the feel-good hormones. These in turn help reduce stress, anxiety, and symptoms of depression. Best of all, you can walk, jog, or run almost anywhere. So, imaginatively turn any floor into a track, lace up your favorite sports shoes, and go for a rejuvenating run, walk, or jog today.

• Jumping Jacks: Begin by standing with your feet hip-width apart and your arms by your sides. Raise your arms to the sides and straight up in the air while jumping with your feet apart. Then, jump back into the starting position, landing softly on the balls of your feet, and bringing your arms back to the body. This boosts your heart rate and engages multiple muscle groups!

• Squats and Burpees: All variations of squatting exercises, from air squats and squats to front kicks to squat jumps and screamer lunges, will get your heart pumping and get targeted muscles into shape in no time. You can do this in your office, bedroom, at the bus park, or in the restroom. Add this to your daily routine and reap the rewards.

• Push-ups/Mountain Climbs: This exercise works the entire body, especially the lower region. Begin in a push-up position then extend the right leg backward and bring the left leg near the chest with your toes on the ground. Maintain stability with your hands on the ground and level your hips, then swiftly alternate the positions of the legs. Continue this alternating leg movement for as long as you can, then rest and repeat.

• Sit-ups, Wall Sits, and Stair climbs: Sit-ups are highly effective for strengthening core muscles, hip flexors, and abdominal muscles. They aid digestion, build muscle, and can help improve posture. Lie on your back with your knees bent and your feet flat on the floor. Place your hands behind your head. Then, use your stomach muscles to lift your torso off the floor and lower yourself back down without letting your back completely touch the floor. Repeat as many times as you desire. Also, you can do wall sits by leaning against a wall and holding the seated position as a form of exercise for as long as you can handle it. Make a habit of taking the stairs often.

Additional exercises include planks, Russian twists, inchworms, bear crawls, bicycle crunches, lateral shuffles, trunk rotation, wipers, arm circles, triceps dips, superman, leg raises, and more. Exercising regularly for at least two and half hours (150 minutes) per week will keep you fit as a fiddle all year round. All that’s needed to start is a willing heart. For more health tips, watch Healthy Living on Healing Streams TV. Find past episodes in the ‘video on demand’ section – www.healingstreams.tv.