"Say you plan to do a 45-minute spin class in a 60-minute lunch break, but your last call overruns by 10 minutes. Your plan is no longer feasible. If you decided instead to do a 10-minute walk around the block every day, and then have a nice cup of tea after your sandwich, you're winning. Even if something urgent comes up, the 10-minute walk is still possible. And on a really good day you could walk four times around the block."
"I confess that I find this idea a bit uninspiring. How am I going to transform my lung capacity by ambling to the end of the road? Actually, when you look at the most successful people, they do the boring, small, incremental changes daily and stick with it, says Thomson. Try to fit in a 10-minute walk every day. But even if you're ensconced in a healthy routine, there can still be space to mix it up."
"But even if you're ensconced in a healthy routine, there can still be space to mix it up. As humans, we like certainty, but we crave variety, she says. And after a morning of work, she points out, many of us struggle with decision fatigue. So if we aim for 80% routine and 20% variety, that's probably about right. Having to make a fresh decision about what to do for lunch every day creates stress, says Thomson."
People commonly overestimate available time and energy during the lunch hour and underestimate what tasks will actually require. Unpredictable interruptions quickly derail long or rigid midday plans. Short, achievable actions such as a daily 10-minute walk plus a tea break remain feasible even when schedule demands change and can accumulate into meaningful benefits. Small incremental changes practiced consistently outperform ambitious, occasional efforts. Maintaining a mostly predictable lunchtime routine while allowing some variety reduces decision fatigue and stress. Occasional shared or different lunch activities provide needed variety without undoing healthy, sustainable habits.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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