Fact of the day:

Regular physical activity is associated with a higher rate of wellbeing across all age groups.

Resources list:

Paperback book, stones, chair; Youtube; Paper, pens or paints; bubbles, feather; newspaper, bowls/baskets/tubs.

Activity 1:

The art of ‘Zen’ is all about creating balance so that we feel in control of our lives. Practice balancing your body, can you stand on one foot and then change over, can you sit balancing one elbow on the chair arm, can you balance stood on your tip toes?

Can you balance different objects, such as making a pile of stones one on top of the other to create a tower – how tall can you make it before it loses balance and tipples over?

Can you balance different objects on yourself  – can you balance a book on your head; can you balance a book on your head while you’re balancing on one leg; can you balance a book on your head while you walk around the room or crouching and standing up, or dancing to a song; how long can you keep it on there – time yourself!

What’s the strangest object in your house that you can *safely* balance on your head – send us photos! You can share them on our Facebook, Instagram or Twitter or send it to melanie@purplepatcharts.org and we’ll put it online for you!

Activity 2:

To help build confidence and self-esteem and to make us feel powerful and in control try changing your posture and do some Power Poses. Try holding your hands on your hips with your head held high and your chest out like Wonderwoman or Superman for 2 minutes. How does it make you feel?

What poses of your own can you do that make you feel brave, unique, confident, strong or kind? Try saying ‘I am … [brave/unique/etc]’ out loud when you hold your pose to remind yourself of how great you are. Or you could have a pose that says ‘I try my best’, ‘when I’m stressed I remember to breathe’ or ‘it will be OK’ – say these words out loud and be proud of yourself.

Have a dance to this song and every time she says ‘Roar’, show your power pose! Or, this song and whenever he says ‘I won’t back down’ show your power pose!

Activity 3:

Try doing some exercise that gets your blood pumping a little bit, getting oxygen all around your body and to your brain. Try this workout to music, or there’s a 10 minute workout you could follow here. Or you could jog on the spot, or step up and down on your bottom couple of steps of your staircase.

Try dressing up for your workout, like in this superhero inspired workout! Kapow!

Try seated, lower intensity ‘Love To Move’ workouts here, here, and here.

If you’re feeling up to it, have a more strenuous Baked Beans workout here.

Try some stretching exercises here. Or chair Pilates here.

Activity 4:

It’s been said that if ever you feel ‘stuck’ you should draw spirals as it keeps you moving forwards. On a piece of paper draw or paint different coloured and sized spirals. Can you also draw imaginary spirals in the air with your nose, toes, fingers, elbows and tongue?

Activity 5:

Try some physical relaxation techniques. You might not need to use these techniques today, but learning them today means you may remember them for when you need them in the future.

If you have a bubble wand practice slow controlled breathing by slowly blowing bubbles. Blow too hard and the mixture will not form bubbles; blow too gently and the bubble will not leave the wand; blowing bubbles well uses the same sort of controlled breathing that we need to do when we feel angry, scared, worried, or upset. It will help calm us down. If our worries were bubbles they would float away and pop, we don’t always need to carry our worries around, we can think about them lifting away from us into the air as we slowly breathe.

Choose a feather you really like. This feather can help us practice breathing techniques too and can help calm us down. Slowly blow on a feather calmly from one side then the other and see how it moves and wafts. Try making slow and gently patterns in the feather with your controlled breath.

After you’ve created a slow breath, keep it up and listen to relaxation music. Close your eyes, focus on your breath and practice deeply listening, filling your mind with the sounds and feel how relaxing they are. Stay quiet like this for as long as you like.

Activity 6:

Make yourself a scrunched up newspaper ball. Create target zones by placing pans, bins, baskets, bowls, tubs, trugs, bags for life, etc on the floor, each target is worth different points – decide what these are. See how high a score you can get by throwing your ball for 10 minutes into the target zones. If it’s too easy, move the target zones further away from you or use smaller targets. Can you throw two balls at the same time? If you’re really good, try throwing the balls over your shoulder while you face in the opposite direction!!

Add on Activity:

Throw yourself a feel good bedroom disco! Put on your favourite songs and let your hair down with a good dance. Listening to things that make us happy, and moving about can help to cheer us up. See if anybody else you live with wants to join you!