Tag Archives: Walking

Positive habits for each day

Posted by Ryan Mark Elliott Music on

Since the lockdown, my routine has gone flying out of the window. In response to that I have since incorporated habits into my daily routine that would allow me some sense of structure and help me achieve some thing positive each day.

Here are some of the habits I have steadily included in my day:

Drinking water at the start of every day

Doing some form of exercise each day (Running, cycling or full body at home) for at least 20 minutes with one rest day a week.

Going for a walk each day

Eating food and vegetables and cooking most of what I eat from scratch.

Doing some form of creating – time span ranges from half an hour to 8 hours depending on my day.

Writing an article each day

Reading for at least half an hour a day

Allocating specific times to check social media, news feeds, emails etc.

With the exception of creating, which is essentially my vocation, everything listed above are small and incremental. Most things are half an hour long in duration. I can confidently say that these have really helped me maintain a positive outlook during what is an otherwise uncertain time.

* I really recommend ‘Zen Habits’ by Leo Babauta. It is a great little book that offers great insight into making positive transformations. One of the reasons so many people cannot commit to their resolutions at the start of every year is that they are expecting too much change in too short a period of time. What we should be instead looking for is small incremental changes gradually over time.

The enhancements of walking daily

Posted by Ryan Mark Elliott Music on

For the best part of three months from March to May 2020, I, along with many residents, spent most of my time in my apartment in Dubai in isolation.

To pass the time, I kept fit doing mat exercises, I read, I wrote music, learnt new recipes and thankfully had a job that kept me busy. I also rewatched all of ‘Breaking Bad’.

Looking back at how challenging it was to be alone in that situation, I am glad that I found the resilience to respond well enough and cope with the situation.

Nevertheless, since the easing of restrictions and moving back to the U.K. I have gone for a walk almost every single day and cherish it more than I ever have done.

There has always been a cathartic quality to taking a walk and my curiosity led to me find out more about the benefits of walking. It is of no surprise that many great composers and entrepreneurs had walking in their daily routines. Steve Jobs was known to have ‘walking meetings’.

Besides the physical benefits of walking, there has also been developments in research that show that walking in fact enhances our cognitive capabilities and makes us more creative as well. (Here is a very detailed study on it https://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/releases/xlm-a0036577.pdf)

I can vouch for this, I find myself thinking with more clarity when I go walking and some of my most lucid creative ideas can occur amidst the temporal movement of putting one front in front of the other.

So for those of you reading this, I challenge you to get a daily walk into your routine, even if it as short as ten minutes. You may be surprised of the possibilities that come from it.