Five Leisure Activities that Promote your Well-Being
There are a number of leisure activities that will promote your well-being, and you will be delighted to know that they don’t all involve physical activity, though that is vital to your health. Below we address just a few of the leisure activities that you can indulge in in a bid to promote your well-being.
Gardening
The wonderful aspect of gardening is that it provides you with physical activity, while you spend time out in the sunshine to enjoy your day. It might just seem like a hobby, but gardening offers health benefits: exercise, stress relief, nutrition, and even brain health as you’re keeping your mind active as you tend to your garden.
There are a number of studies that prove this to be so. One study in the Netherlands, which had one group of subjects garden after stressful activity, and the other read a book- it was the gardeners that saw their mood improve the most. If you have a community garden within reach, it is ideal as it allows human interaction.
Dancing
Dancing is a wonderful activity that promotes energy, vitality, physical health and an improved mood to support your overall well-being at any age!
There are many types of dance styles, from ballroom to hip-hop to square dancing and everything in between.
Grab a partner or find one at any of the local dance schools near you and get to stepping!
Cooking
The American Psychological Association recommends cooking as a leisure activity. When you consider that it not only gets you up and about, but that it requires thinking, thus keeping your mind active, it makes sense that it would be considered an important activity to your overall well-being.
Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Health also points to the fact that you are more likely to eat a healthy nutritious diet when you are spending time in the kitchen. If you happen to be cooking with products that you grew in your own garden, then you are in an even healthier position.
Exercise
C3 Health offers a number of graphs with statistics about obesity across the world, in addition the activities that can help you counter against it. Light walking is sufficient to promote your well-being, helping battle against diabetes, not to mention lowering BMI, fighting high cholesterol and high blood pressure.
In fact, let’s put it like this: 6% of deaths across the world can be attributed to physical inactivity, while it is the fourth leading risk factor for mortality, globally. That equates to over 3 million deaths annually, with almost 700,000 of them being premature.
Walking is an ideal place to start, you can increase it daily and branch out to other activities like tennis, cycling, or whatever else you may prefer. If you can join a club to get time socializing, then that is wonderful, as human contact is important to your well-being.
Yoga & Meditation
Yoga is one of the holistic ancient methods that has been used for thousands of years; it aims to treat the entire body. Not only do you employ breathing techniques, but also the poses allow you to lead your body through stretches, which will keep you flexible.
It reduces aches and pains, and also helps prevent injury, especially in the event of a fall. While you are focused on breathing through your postures, you are shutting everything else out & becoming one with yourself.
Yoga offers incredible physical benefits in addition to mental health benefits, since it is a stress relieving exercise it can relieve symptoms of anxiety and depression.
Bottom Line
The majority of leisure activities offer the same benefits: reduction of stress (which can improve symptoms of depression & anxiety), exercise (to improve your physical being), keeping your mind active & depending on where you can enjoy your activity it can keep you social.
Social interaction is the other key aspect of a leisure activity, while you can complete any of these activities at home & alone it is beneficial to spend some time socializing with others.