For furloughed workers, home workers and other people being forced to spend far more time at home during this lockdown, there is a strange dilemma around productivity.  While some people are gleefully redecorating their whole houses, learning Mandarin, starting an online knitted dog harness business and teaching their kids how to fix a car, others are struggling to get dressed in the morning.  Newspaper articles are telling us to be more productive and others are telling us to ignore all that and take all the time we need to do nothing.  It’s actually quite confusing.  Here is our take on it and, thankfully, how exercise can help you either be productive or do nothing depending on how you feel about these things.

Why Be Productive

People have been quick to point out that Shakespeare wrote King Lear and Isaac Newton discovered gravity during lockdowns in the past so it’s clear that people can accomplish great things while stuck at home but being productive doesn’t necessarily mean doing something momentous.  For most people, feeling like they’re accomplishing something, even really small domestic duties, is important to their wellbeing.  Routine is vital to maintaining good mental health and having things to do gives people a reason to get out of bed at a certain time and the all round impetus to keep going.  It’s a fact that some people just need to be productive or they find themselves very unhappy and lost.

Why Be Unproductive

That’s not everyone though.  The newspaper articles telling people to ignore the pressure to be super productive during lockdown are also absolutely right.  If you aren’t the sort of person who absolutely has be productive for the sake of their sanity, then there’s really no need to be so.  Lockdown and all the pressures and worries around it are stressful enough that there’s really no need to add to it if you don’t have to.  People who like to potter can establish routines too even if they are just around meal times and taking time out to exercise or get some fresh air.  Plenty of people are perfectly happy to not be productive and that’s absolutely fine.  Problems only arise when people pressure themselves into being productive or not being productive against their true nature.

How Exercise Helps

It’s almost become a clique to list all the things exercise helps with because it seems to help with everything but that’s just it!  It does help with everything.  For people who want to increase their productivity, adding regular exercise into your routine can help improve energy levels, make it easier to focus and help you to move more easily if you’ve been sitting down for long periods.  For people who want to break free of the pressure to be productive and relax better, exercise can help that too by releasing feel good chemicals into your body and reducing stress hormones which can build up if you’ve been worried for a long time.  Exercise is particularly helpful in lockdown to give your day some structure, establish routines and boost mental and physical health.

Thankfully, there are lots of exercise options for people staying at home as well as taking the allowed outside exercise.  If you’re struggling to get motivated to exercise or aren’t sure what sort of exercise you should be doing to best suit your needs, get in touch with us at Transform Personal Training for instruction over video call and all the nutritional and lifestyle support that goes along with our training.  Call 01273 610609 or email contact@transformpthove.co.uk for a free no-obligation online consultation.