Open Your Hands Wide, Embrace Happiness by Takashi Murakami*
“Small amounts of exercise could have an outsize effect on happiness.” —Gretchen Reynolds, New York TimesYou know how we’re always telling you that you can start with a short home practice, even of just 10 to 15 minutes of asana? We’ve been recommending that because establishing a regular habit is more important than doing a longer practice only once in a while and because even a little daily work on strength building, stretching, balancing and/or agility practices is so much better than none. But now there is another even more compelling reason to even practice just 10 minutes a day: it could make happier!
According to Even a Little Exercise Might Make Us Happier in the New York Times people who exercise for as little as 10 minutes a day tend to be more cheerful than those who never exercise. And it doesn’t matter which kind of exercise you do; walking, jogging, stretching, and yoga all have the same effect.
This New Times article was reporting on a study A Systematic Review of the Relationship Between Physical Activity and Happiness which was designed to research the relationship between physical activity and happiness by systematically reviewing existing literature on the subject. According to Weiyun Chen, an associate professor of kinesiology at the University of Michigan,
“Every one of the observational studies showed a beneficial relationship between being physically active and being happy.”
However—and you probably knew this was coming—Dr. Chen also told Gretchen Reynolds that “a bit more is probably better.” They concluded from the research that people who exercised on most days for at least 30 minutes were about 30 percent more likely to consider themselves happy.
What’s your personal experience with this?
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