The Top 13 Reasons Why You Need to Start Doing Bodyweight Exercises Immediately

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7 Reasons You Should Start Doing Yoga Immediately

Yoga is an ancient practice with origins stretching back thousands of years in India. It is designed to help achieve a more positive outlook on life and a focused, permanent sense of serenity and peace. The word ‘yoga’ itself means ‘union’ and ‘union with the divine’; however, many people have stripped away the spirituality and focus of yoga so that most think of it as a group of intensely athletic people putting their legs behind their heads and curling up into jaw-dropping positions.

While that certainly happens–I’ve actually done the leg behind the head thing a few times, but only after years of careful stretches and practice–yoga has so much more to offer than flexibility and the idea of garnering a strong body. People of all shapes, sizes, ages and abilities can do yoga and adapt it to suit their individual tastes and needs.

If you think yoga might not be for you, I urge you to reconsider. Here are seven of my top reasons why you should start doing yoga as soon as you can.

First of all and most obviously, yoga is a fantastic workout for your body. You can adapt the practices to your own speed and level of comfort. No matter which yoga exercises you choose, the practices will always be part of a great workout routine. There are some fantastic series of movements out there that are perfect for every kind of day and for every kind of person, meaning there’s no reason not to start doing some yoga as soon as you can.

Yoga stretches and exercises are designed around the idea of moving your body to increase its strength and durability. Therefore, doing yoga on a regular basis will really get you to be much more in tune with your body and know when something is really working and when it isn’t.

Of course, this isn’t always a good thing, as it can be discouraging when certain exercises aren’t working for your body the way they were the day before; however, it does have its benefits, and it makes improvements in your physical state that are much more pronounced and noticeable.

A big part of yoga is the breathing exercises–or the pranayama–which are incorporated into positions and then on their own. The exercises encourage a more focused and centered way of breathing, and while they might not be something you’ll do consciously every day, they’re absolutely sure to provide methods of effective stress-management and generally make you feel much better.

Plus, as someone with asthma, it really helps to open your lungs and explore what it means to breath consciously. Trust me: do those pranayamas for a few weeks, and you’ll feel the benefits.

Another minor but pleasant benefit is that doing yoga can actually help you get better sleep. This might be due to the fact that a few sequences of poses and movements are intended to be done right before sleep, but regardless, studies have shown that doing some light physical activity before our heads hit the hay can help us get off to sleep more quickly, which usually leads to a much better quality of sleep.

It also might be due to the fact that if you have problems getting to sleep, working on problem-areas through yoga can help alleviate pain symptoms and increase the likelihood of better sleep. Another possibility is that most yoga sessions have a cool-down sequence at the end, which can definitely induce some easy slumber. As someone who’s fallen asleep in class many a time–to the point where my mat neighbor and I have a buddy system in case one of us starts snoring–believe me, this really works and should be done at home.

Yoga is pretty effective at helping you develop some premium, proper posture, since a lot of the breathing and seated positions require a straight back for proper effect. Good posture is definitely going to develop during yoga practice.

You’ll start off slouching and slumped, reflecting the figure of someone who spends most of the day at their desk–believe me, I’ve been there–and yoga will help sculpt your back into the kind of poised posture that’ll make you walk taller and feel immensely better about it.

Another side effect of yoga is that it will help you develop some truly incredible mental and physical strength. The whole point of yoga is to work on your body’s strength so that you can sit for longer in meditation, and the physical investment in the stretches and positions ensures that you’ll experience plenty of physical strength benefits as a result.

The breathing exercises can improve your lung capacity, and lunges and stretches can increase your core strength as well as every muscle you can think of; meanwhile, the exercises force you to focus on the moment, and during meditation, to clear your mind, which helps alleviate stress and improve your mental health.

Meditation, meditation, meditation. It’s really the key to all things yoga. Even if you can do every kind of complicated pose under the sun, it loses all of its true meaning if it’s not done with focus and thought. Meditation has been shown time and time again to be a beneficial practice that everyone should implement into their daily routine.

Meditation isn’t necessarily sitting with a bowl of incense and working your way through a book of Tibetan chants in a darkened, candlelit room–rather, you can meditate anywhere quiet and at absolutely any time you like. All it takes is five minutes with some alone time and peace and quiet. Meditation improves your quality of life by allowing your mind some time to process everything that goes on in your life. It’s a hugely important and integral part of yoga practice and something that can really change your life, allowing you to embrace calmness and serenity with ease.

From the outside, yoga seems like some impossible superhuman carnival trick. 10 Must Have Yoga Accessories

Featured photo credit: Caucasian woman practicing yoga at seashorevia Shutterstock

Young, free and happy. Well, more young, free and trying to find his way in the world with an obsessive to-do list, an iPod and a cookie recipe but it's the thought that can counts. Writes for WhatCulture, TeenEvents, MaximumPop! and Lifehack amongst others.

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10 Hacks That Can Change Your Day Immediately

As human beings, we have an amazing ability to overestimate what we can do in the next year and totally underestimate what we can do in the next 15 minutes. In these early days of 2013, it’s more important than ever to emphasize just how much of a difference the next 15 minutes can make in your day.

So, for now, forget the long-term and instead of focus only on what is right in front of you. The next year is not guaranteed: this moment right now is all you have.

Make a list of five immediate actions that need to be done in order for progress to be made on the big project(s) on which you are currently working. They don’t have to be big: target what you know to be absolute “musts” and take massive action on them without hesitation or fear.De-clutter your workspace. Be ruthless with your organization, and toss out what does not belong or what no longer has a practical use. Embrace a zen-like workspace.Answer that e-mail you need to get to. You know which one I’m talking about: that e-mail that you know is crying out for a response. Maybe it’s work-related, maybe it’s personal; it doesn’t matter. Respond immediately and clear it from your mind—your focus is needed elsewhere. Oh, and before you hit send, be sure to make sure that the e-mail doesn’t suck.Write a letter or e-mail of gratitude to your parents. At first, this might sound a little strange, particularly if you don’t have the best relationship with your parents, but write a letter or e-mail simply thanking your parents for having you. Even if you’ve lost them, even if you don’t know them, even if they weren’t great parents, you can still write this letter. None of us would be here if our parents had not given birth to us, and that’s a unique bond that should not be ignored. Here’s the best part: you don’t even have to send it if you don’t want to, and the process will be an empowering, healing experience for you.Schedule a meeting that will move you forward. I’m not talking about having a meeting for the sake of having a meeting (ugh…those are truly awful). I’m talking about getting together with someone who has information that will be beneficial to you. This doesn’t have to be formal; in fact, it doesn’t even have to be related to your professional life at all. It can be dinner with a friend from whom you want marriage advice, for example. Just get that person on the phone, and then get that meeting on the calendar.Answer two very important questions that will keep you productive all day long: What’s important now? What’s next?Do absolutely nothing for 15 minutes straight. Yes, choosing to do nothing is, in fact, doing something. Spend 15 minutes in silence, with no agenda, giving your mind and spirit and chance to refresh and regroup. I promise that when the 15 minutes are up you will be able to return to whatever you’re working on with a new perspective.Celebrate the fact that you are still breathing at this very moment. A huge thing you have going for you is in the “plus” column right now. Turn on some music and dance, get out of your chair! Be grateful that you’ve made it this far.Change your setting. Get out of the office and go for a walk outside to breathe in the air. If it’s raining, go outside anyway! Admire the life-giving miracle taking place before your eyes.Simply start whatever big project you’ve been putting off or thinking about, no matter how big it seems. In high school, I had a teacher who told me that when you start something you are already half-finished. That has worked for me to this day, and it can work for you, too. Get started right now!

SEE ALSO: How Saving $5 A Day Can Change Your Life

Featured photo credit: Dad and child on the beach at at sunset via Shutterstock Robert D. Smith is the author of "20,000 Days and Counting," a crash course in living every single day with maximum intensity and purpose. For over 30 years, he has managed the career of New York Times best-selling author Andy Andrews. He blogs about entrepreneurship, personal growth, and more at TheRobertD.com.

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5 Ways to Immediately Regain Control of Your Day

How often do you begin your day with this thought:

“Ugh.  I’m too tired for this.  I wish I could get settled before the nonstop hassles start?”

How often do you end your day with a thought like:

“I’m exhausted…I can’t remember what I accomplished today, but I feel like I slogged uphill carrying my desk?”

For many of us, the answer is “far too often”.

There are many things that could contribute to those feelings, and many are beyond our control – immediate or otherwise.  However, there are several things we do to ourselves that contribute to ending a day with such work exhaustion that it guarantees the next day will begin with it. This starts a self-reinforcing cycle that will end in burnout.

Fortunately, there are several things you can immediately implement to start gaining control of some of your day and give you the perspective to seize control of as much of the rest of it as you possibly can.  Here are five things you can do…beginning today.

You just gave yourself three hours right there.  If you have a 9-hour workday, it just became a 6-hour (normal) workday with three hours at the beginning and end to review your plans for the day and revise as necessary, identify whether meetings need to be scheduled or rescheduled since yesterday, and finish out your day by making any final notes (either in your calendar or in your daily notebook) about what transpired and any required follow-up actions.

Don’t allow incursions.  Really.  How many times have you tried to schedule a meeting with someone to find their calendar completely full from beginning to the end of the day, and possibly with overlapping or conflicting appointments?  Annoying, isn’t it?  And completely counterproductive.  No one can possibly hold all of those meetings, and if even just one or two slip, the remainder are usually slipped later in the day rather than killing or rescheduling one meeting in favor of saving the others.  Protect your ability to remain effective:  schedule islands of meeting prep and recovery time (for assembly of briefing materials beforehand and documentation afterward) to start gaining control of your day.  A fifteen-to-thirty minute hold on your calendar around most meetings will suffice.

Protect it.  Lunch is important, even if you don’t eat.  But, eat.  Skipping a meal guarantees you’ll crash sometime during the afternoon, and almost certainly overeat at dinner.  Lunch is also a crucial middle-of-the-workday decompression time.  If you don’t want to spend half an hour or an hour in a restaurant, take your lunch to a nearby park, picnic table, or somewhere else that will get you outside if the weather is good, and away from your desk regardless.  If you aren’t eating lunch for some reason, at least take time for a constructive break.

“What’s the next action?”

David Allen’s Getting Things Done espouses this principle as one of the most crucial to being productive.  I happen to agree, and practice it almost constantly.  Ending a meeting with no clear expectation of what is owed to whom guarantees something – or everything – will be late.  Declaring “I need something” does not equate to issuing an action.  Identify the action, the desired result, the expected delivery timeframe, and the person who is responsible.  Ensure they understand this information…have them repeat it back to you.  The trick to gaining control of your day is not to assume they understood you simply because you think you were clear.  Meetings that are scheduled to end at 5PM and do not include a time before the end of the agenda to review action items are not properly-scheduled meetings.  It doesn’t matter if you have a great GTD tool you use, or are using a paper planner, capture the next actions in a way that allows you to find them again.

Do it more often than once a day!  Waiting until the end of the day to make all of your daily notes will virtually guarantee that you will have forgotten an action or an important detail, and it will frustrate you when inevitable interruptions occur during your carefully-constructed end-of-the-day notetaking time.  As much as possible, jot down memory-jogging notes about your meetings and decisions as you make them, or very quickly thereafter.  An easy way to do this is to add notes to calendar appointments, or print the calendar and take it with you; you can then simply add it to your notebook with the appointment “pre-populated” and the notes written on it, automatically placing them in context.

(Photo credit: Man Holding Clock via Shutterstock)

Andrew writes at 360 Minutes, where he shares his best advice on becoming more productive and effective, so you can gain the time to do the things that you love. Get his RSS feed directly, and take a look at his Getting Started page if you're looking for ways to get your head above water at work.

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