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By Mark Lundegren

We often think that exercise takes time. In practice, however, this common assumption proves self-reinforcing but untrue. As people who exercise regularly know, physical conditioning is essential for vibrant and engaged life. For this reason, exercise actually or naturally makes time in our lives.

Walking Naturally Gives Us Health in Body, Mind, and Spirit

The persistence of the idea that exercise is time-consuming owes in part to the fact that we often see exercise as activity apart from the rest of our modern lives. Notably, this perspective is born from life that often unnaturally involves long periods of inactivity and sitting each day – in cars, trains, offices, homes, restaurants, and theaters.

Related to this is a modern outlook that fails to see physical activity in general as exercise, as a ready means to ensure natural conditioning – an essential natural health enabler and key HumanaNatura goal. So we sit and think about the modern challenge of exercise, instead of walking and naturally having this exercise as a daily part of our lives.

As a consequence of both outlooks – and the reduced natural health and functioning that inactivity inevitably causes in us – many of us are unnaturally inactive for many hours each day. In this compounding process, our reduced natural activity lowers our capacity for and interest in physical activity, creating an ever-widening gulf between our lives and our potential for vibrant natural health and fitness.

In this now common pattern of life, we fail to see our many opportunities for and the urgent benefits of a more naturally active and energetic life, instead lamenting our seeming lack of time, opportunity, and energy for exercise and naturally active living.

Continue reading “Exercise Naturally Creates Time!”

By Mark Lundegren

Are you one of those people who has it all…intelligence, physical fitness, natural good looks, lasting happiness, a personality that invites others, and maybe musical or another creative talent? If you answered, “not quite,” would you like to be this way?

The truth is not just that we can have or be all these things, but that we naturally are all these things. In an area of findings that can lead to new insights into our life and health potential, these various attributes have been shown in research to be natural aspects or qualities of a complete, integrated, and healthy human being. They have also been shown to increase or diminish together…as our natural health improves or as it is reduced.

As natural beings and highly-evolved social animals, possessing these essential features of successful human life is our expected condition and not an exceptional state – whenever we are naturally and fully expressed as people, balanced, vital, and well. When we are in the “not quite” category, or worse, this is a sign that our overall health and natural vitality have been compromised, underdeveloped, or misunderstood.

Continue reading “An Integrated Outlook on Fitness”

If you live in the northern hemisphere, especially in the upper latitudes, and are somehow just not feeling your best these days, you may be SAD…suffering from Seasonal Affective Disorder. SAD afflicts millions of people at about this time each year. It is driven primarily by the shorter days and our reduced exposure to hormone-regulating, and serotonin and Vitamin D-generating, sunlight. Symptoms of SAD range from lethargy to irritability and from social withdrawal to sugar-cravings.

Like other forms of depression, SAD has a natural regressive quality, in that reduced feelings of personal well-being from reduced sunlight tend to make us less active and socially-oriented, circularly and negatively keeping us from exercise, the outdoors, and others – three of our most important natural sources of positive emotions and vibrant life. SAD can disrupt our diet as well, as we seek sugary foods to boost our mood in place of dwindling serotonin levels, leading to more volatile emotions and stress-elevating weight-gain.

While some instances of SAD require medical intervention, many of us can release its seasonal hold on us and break its regressive cycle of disaffection through simple natural health actions. Key SAD mitigating actions include: 1) regular exposure to midday winter sun on our face, arms, and legs (taking care never to burn our skin), 2) daily outdoor exercise, ideally that simultaneously provides midday sun exposure, and 3) daily social activities, again preferably ones that offer time outdoors and added sun exposure.

You can learn more about SAD at Seasonal Affective Disorder and review HumanaNatura’s popular article Revisiting The Sun for guidance and information on beneficial daily sun exposure, now and throughout the year.

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