Movement as a spectrum

Most of us think of physical activity as exercise, but I don't love that word. Exercise, for me, is judgemental. It implies that physical activity needs to be vigorous in order to count.

I prefer the word movement, both personally and professionally, which is much more suggestive of something with significant variety. Many of us fell prey to the thought that exercise has to be vigorous or of long duration to count, and then struggle to create a sustainable and personalized relationship with movement. One way to work with this distortion is to consider movement as a spectrum.

​Movement could be looked at as a spectrum with stillness on one end and vigorous movement on the other. Even stillness offers a lot of variety: meditating, savasana, body scans, napping (my favorite), daydreaming, people watching, and resting. While vigorous movement could be anything from playing soccer with your kids to cross country skiing.

That leaves a LOT of space between extremes: gentle, precise, sensual, and a huge variety of moderate intensity forms of movement. Consider this fact when approaching a self-directed relationship with movement, and maybe give yourself permission to think outside the box.