Sleep, nutrition and exercise are often neglected. In fact, there are many successful people, even millionaires that argue you have to cut down on sleep to get things done. However, for us mere mortals these things are incredibly important for our wellbeing and productivity.
For example in the previous post, I highlighted one study that reported just a 1-hour increase in sleep can increase earnings by 5%. Therefore, there is a measurable impact between being healthy and your income.
In fact, research has identified that healthy people can make as much as 28% more than their unhealthy counterparts. This study by the National Bureau of Economic Research found that on average, a healthy 65-year old with a high-school degree had $230,000 in wealth compared to $120,000 for an unhealthy 65-year old with a high-school degree.
Why Common Exercise Advice Usually Fails
The problem with all the recommendations that we usually receive about health, fitness and nutrition is that they are complicated and time-consuming. I also feel like they miss the point, I don’t have the time or desire to spend hours in the gym to get a 6 pack.
What I want is to feel fresh and mentally alert throughout my day. Therefore, I wanted to show you two easy forms of exercise you can integrate into your week and even your day. This way you don’t have to spend hours going to the gym, you can add 10-15 minutes of exercise into your day and this can have a massive impact.
1. Start Practicing Yoga
Please don’t skip over this section, even if you think that yoga is too complicated, you think you’re not fit or flexible enough or even because you are a man.
Yoga can be for both sexes and you don’t need to be embarrassed for any reason. Yoga classes cater to many ability levels and with the right instructor, you can improve very quickly.
I say this as a complete beginner who decided to try out yoga and ended up in a mixed-sex class with people who had a range of fitness levels. It was hard to keep up the first time, but you soon get the hang of it.
Stay Sharp And Injury Free With Yoga
Yoga has a range of physical health benefits such as reduced muscle tension and inflammation and protection from injury. There is also a whole host of mental health benefits such as; sharper attention/concentration span, reduced stress, anxiety and fatigue.
This is because of how yoga can trigger neurotransmitters which modulates these feelings. It can also increase academic performance and increase your resilience and self-regulation.
As a result of practicing yoga, when things get tough, you will potentially have greater cognitive and emotional resilience to push through it. This can be invaluable.
Sleep Better With Yoga & Feel Less Anxious
Yoga has been shown to increase the level of gamma-aminobutyric acid, or GABA, a chemical in the brain that helps to regulate nerve activity. This is especially relevant to people who have anxiety disorders in which GABA activity is low.
Therefore, if you struggle with anxiety and feel that this is impeding your progress in life, yoga might be the exercise that can help you reach your potential.
GABA is also a sleep-related chemical, the more GABA the better you will sleep. You can read the last post to find out why sleep is so important!
Healthy Immune Function
Evidence also highlights that the deep, physiological state of rest induced by such practices produces immediate positive change in the expression of genes involved in immune function, energy metabolism and insulin secretion.
2. Get Your Daily HIIT (High-Intensity Interval Training)
This might sound difficult, but I actually find it easier and more enjoyable than other forms of exercise now. You don’t have to create your own exercise routines, as many affordable gyms such as Pure gym offer classes included in the monthly membership. These classes are usually between 25 – 45 mins. My preferred form of HIIT exercised is cycle/spinning.
Improve Your Brain Power
I’ve found there are so many extra benefits of HIIT vs regular aerobic exercise, such as going for a run. These benefits seem to pair up well with the research I’ve found on HIIT.
For example, HIIT can improve executive function and wellbeing. Thereby; improving memory, flexible thinking, concentration, self-control, organising and planning, and self-monitoring. All valuable skills to help you in the work-place or when you are working on your side-hustle.
Improve Your Mood And Reduce Your Anxiety
It can also improve your ability to manage your emotions and has been evidenced to improve mood and treat anxiety. With the additional benefit of improving perceived physical capability and perceived physical appearance.
However, it’s not only perceived capability that improved, the HIIT group in one study, showed significant improvements in reaction time on information processing and cognitive tasks in addition to improved physical function such as walking endurance and mobility. This is when compared to a group that focused on continuous aerobic or resistance training.
The perception of your ability by yourself and others can be the difference between your percieved value and subsequent pay. In addition to your confidence levels and performance when you actually approach the task at hand.
Increase Your Heart Health
HIIT training is outstanding for your cardiovascular system. Research shows that HIIT can boost your v02 max (how much oxygen you use) by up to 46% in 24 weeks. Greater levels of oxygen, means more fuel for you brain and this means greater productivity.
It can increase your stroke volume (how much oxygen your heart pumps out per beat) by 10% after eight weeks of training and significantly lower your resting heart rate.
HIIT not only has a massive boost on the cardiovascular system but also prevents age-related cognitive decline. This could mean lower health costs for both you and your family in the future.
Start Increasing Your Wealth With Your Health
There seems to be enough evidence to suggest that you don’t need to spend hours in the gym to make a healthy difference to your health, wellbeing or productivity. As this post has hopefully shown that you can do short periods of intense exercise that can have a dramatic effect on your actual and perceived levels of ability.
You can also improve your mood, sleep, performance and resilience with slower forms of exercise such as yoga. On a personal note; I did not use to be a morning person! I wouldn’t speak to anyone until about 10am at work. However, since building yoga into my morning routine, I find it so much easier to get out of bed.
You can easily introduce yoga into your morning routine, with as little as 10 to 15 minutes. You can start off with some gentle stretches, or up the tempo with some quick sun salutations.
Here are some youtube links to help you get started. I recommend Yoga with Kassandra as these flows are simple but effective.
- Slow Morning Warm-Up (10minutes): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4pKly2JojMw
- Sun Salutations (15minutes): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZP34IA0d8LI
- Full Body Yoga (20minutes): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5wUC4HlQwZc
- Full Body Yoga (30minutes): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z6jRKThDCBU
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I think my distance running helped my career . Some days I got up at 2:30 AM and ran 20 miles and still got into my office before 8. That cut into my sleep but it taught me to function through fatigue and pain. I had a pretty soft life but endurance training gave me some discipline.
Hi Steveark,
Wow, that’s some pretty impressive stuff!! (I genuinely said that out loud as I read that). I’m glad it had a positive effect on your career and discipline. Were you training for a marathon at the time, or just getting into running? Also, how much sleep were you managing to get at the time? I hope you weren’t depriving yourself too much, as sleep deprivation can be very detrimental. This is what my previous post was about, I’d love to get your thoughts on that too! https://money-side-up.com/productivity-hacks-to-help-you-save-money-feeling-tired/
I usually did long runs on the weekend and only missed sleep on rare occasions. I was running marathons but only one of two a year. Most of my long runs weren’t marathon training, just something I did . I could miss sleep once in awhile but I had to get plenty to be at my best at work. I usually got 8 hours sleep, now I’m retired about the same .
That’s great that you managed to maintain such a balance between running, work and sleep! Do you still run now that you are retired?