by Michael Plank
If you’re just joining the Bare Minimum Mondays posts, here’s the premise…
Action always gets more results than ideas. (Related to this: the thing you do is better than the thing you don’t do, progress is better than perfection, consistency, even with something small, is more effective than occasional bursts of excellence).
Every Monday, we send out things to try in four areas: movement (exercise), nutrition, sleep, and stress management. These are, without question, the four most powerful tools available for tackling a massive number of maladies. The goal isn’t for you to do all of them forever. It’s not even for you to do all of them this week. The goal is to give you enough things to try that you can find a couple that stick, and then for you to have some intentionality in each of those areas that you can stick with for the rest of your life.
Take what you need, discard the rest.
Let’s get into it.
Move
Do 10 Step-Ups on a Sturdy Surface. Step-ups are way underrated. They improve leg strength and balance, making them a practical, low-impact exercise, and they become more and more valuable as we age.https://journals.humankinetics.com/view/journals/japa/24/3/article-p408.xml
Eat
Plan One Home-Cooked Meal This Week. You probably don’t need much research to convince you that a home-cooked meal will nearly always be more nutrient-dense and lower-calorie than one from a restaurant. But in case you do, research in Public Health Nutrition shows that home-cooked meals are associated with better diet quality and lower calorie consumption.
Sleep
Take a Warm Bath 90 Minutes Before Bed. A study in Sleep Medicine Reviews found that a warm bath before bed can enhance sleep by promoting relaxation and lowering body temperature.
Manage
Set a Daily Intention in the Morning. Setting intentions – that is, writing or thinking about how you want to move through the day – can reduce stress and improve focus by aligning your actions with personal values. Note: this works better when the intention is around things you can control as opposed to things you can’t. For example, “I will be calm, cool, and collected regardless of what hiccups the day brings,” is probably going to work better than “today, nothing will go wrong!”