Discover the Benefits of the Home Commute
Whether it’s due to Covid or just the modern way of working, more and more of us are now working from home, and that usually means working indoors, at a desk, in the house.
Sadly for many, that change in working pattern has led to increased inactivity, which is a great shame because we’ve gained all that time we used to spend commuting. Yet for many people, it has led to a decrease in physical activity because they can’t find enough time in the day to take exercise.
My thoughts on this are that the most beneficial thing people could do with some of that time they used to spend driving or sitting on a bus or train to work would be to build an active commute, or home commute, into their daily lives.
Guidelines issued by the World Health Organization and Chief Medical Officers of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland recommend that adults should accumulate at least 150 minutes (2.5 hours) of moderate intensity activity every week.
Despite this commendable advice, there are many people that aren’t achieving that target figure of 150 minutes per week. Indeed, many aren’t even reaching 30 minutes per week.
Figures from the Health Survey for England show that 20% of men and 25% of women aren’t getting 30 minutes of exercise per week and 33% of men and 45% of women aren’t getting the recommended minimum of 150 minutes per week.
For anyone who is working from home and not managing to reach 150 minutes per week, here is a suggestion that might just work for you.
Before you start work each morning, go out for a quick walk, then when you finish work on an afternoon, go out for another walk. By doing that you are introducing an element of commuting into your daily routine. You are, in a way, leaving home and arriving at work, then reversing that process in the afternoon.
As well as making a mental switch between your home life and work life, you are arriving at work having benefitted from some fresh air and physical exercise. Unlike someone who has just slumped in front of their computer with their PJ bottoms on, you’re now wide awake and alert. You are ready to perform and have a more productive day.
In terms of how far to walk, here’s a suggestion. Walk for six minutes then turn round and walk back again. A 12-minute walk will probably mean you walk about a kilometre, depending on your speed. Do that twice a day and you will be walking 24 minutes per day and around 2 kilometres per day. After five days, you will have walked for two hours or 120 minutes, and somewhere in the region of ten kilometres.
At that point, you are only 30 minutes away from the target of 150 minutes for the week, so look for a way of taking some more exercise over the weekend, but, if you can, do something different to your daily home commute. Walk somewhere else for a change or do a different activity such as cycling, running or gardening.
This plan may sound do-able, and you might see your enthusiasm picking up to give it a go, but the first time you open the door on a morning to be greeted by horizontal rain in your face, you might suddenly have second thoughts. Don’t worry, you can plan for that and have alternatives in place. If the weather is that unpleasant on a morning then you can walk up and down the stairs ten times instead and/or go out for your walk at lunchtime.
The reason for trying to get you to think about the home commute is to help those who aren’t achieving that target of 150 minutes of physical activity a week to find a way of building physical activity into their lives so that they reach that figure and enjoy the physical and mental health benefits of regular exercise.
Home commute in late September
My book, Find Time for Exercise, is based on the belief that setting a physical exercise challenge is a great way to motivate yourself, achieve an increase in the amount of physical activity that you take and then, crucially, maintain that level of activity into the future. Setting a challenge and creating a determination to achieve it is a fantastic way of staying focused and for taking regular exercise to become a habit.
The culmination of the book is a list of ten principles to follow as you challenge yourself to build more exercise into your life. One of those principles is: “However much exercise you currently take, even a small increase in your level of activity could provide you with benefits to your health and happiness”. If, for example, you are currently taking about 30 minutes per week of exercise, you are likely to gain some benefits from increasing to 60 or 90 minutes per week. Yes, we should all be aiming to get at least 150 minutes per week, but being realistic, if you as an individual can increase your activity level, then that is a cause for celebration, and I would encourage you to build that extra bit of movement into your life.
The phrase that inspired my book, and provided the title, came from the 19th century prime minister, Edward Smith-Stanley. He once said: “Those who do not find time for exercise will have to find time for illness”. Finding 24 minutes each day to get outside for two short walks is likely to be easier, more convenient and less painful than having to find time for illness.
For more tips and ideas about finding time for exercise, you can purchase Find Time for Exercise from my website at www.findtimeforexercise.com or from a range of online retailers. Find Time for Exercise is available as a paperback and ebook.
I am available to give talks on the benefits of regular exercise. If you would like me to give a presentation to a live or online audience, then please visit my website and click on Talks.
If you do get into the habit of home commuting, then share your experiences on social media using the hashtags: #HomeCommute #ActiveCommute #WalkFromHome #WalkToWork #FindTimeForExercise.
On our way home from a day at work