When we think of living a fuller life, top of mind comes more of something like health, energy, fitness, and sure to top the list for us who remember TV in black and white—a youthful look! What if having more was right out your front door? Seriously - it's closer that you can imagine. Studies show that increasing your daily activity gives you all of this.

1. Take a walk—Get your Fitbit, find a pleasurable place to walk and find your comfortable walking shows. Invite a friend. Pick up the pace. Set a reasonable distance. Do it daily and increase the walk distance each week or month. But do it!
2. Get peddling—Find your bike and I’m talking 3-speed or no-speed. Wipe off the cobwebs. Put on the helmet and go for a leisurely ride for 3 or 5 miles. Do it every weekend or more if you can. But do it!
3. Make a splash—for those who like the pool, find a swimmer’s pool—one with lanes and no kids. Swim some laps. What ever you can do. Mark down how many you did and increase it by 2 each swim. Pick up the pace. Or for those social folks, join a water aerobics class and go!

This list is short and it’s easy to accomplish. It simply takes earnestly desiring “more” enough, in the slogan of Nike, to Just Do It. If you do, and enjoy what you do, and do it consistently, you’ll end up with more of what you want.

There’s more. When you get more active and enjoy the activity, you’re more likely to be happier, you know, laugh more--and if you do it with a friend or two, you build stronger relationships and increase your knowledge of things and people around you. We’ve heard that “Laughter is the best medicine.” That means healthier. We’ve read that more social people live longer and fuller lives. And for those who learn new things constantly—keeping the mind active—have better and longer cognitive ability. Exercise helps too! It’s the “Use it or lose it” position.

And that adds up to more benefits than imagined.

Yes, there’s eating healthy. Stay tuned and we’ll address that one too!

Article by Elizabeth Park