1 . Why Play? Why Outside?

Play is important, even for adults. Here are some great reasons to get outside and play.

    1    .

Being outdoors brings the senses to life. In fact, 75 percent of students surveyed by Weekly Reader said they felt better after spending time outside. “Hiking, exploring, and fishing help sharpen all of your senses,” says Betsy Keller, a professor of exercise and sports sciences. “Smell, sight... they’re all engaged when you’re outside.” Bonus!     2    .

Outdoor play eases your mind.

Are you stressed out? Having trouble concentrating?     3    . Exposure to nature has been shown to lower stress levels and improve attention deficit disorder (注意缺陷障碍). “By comparison,” says Keller, “activities indoors, such as watching TV, or activities in non-green areas leave kids with ADD worse off.”

Spending time outdoors brings you closer to the environment.

Hearing the leaves rustling underfoot and breathing in fresh air build awareness and appreciation of the environment, if you walk through the woods in search of cool birds and plants, you may find your mind expanding.

No woods nearby?     4     . Nature can be as close as your own backyard or those trees at the end of the street. There are bits of nature everywhere — even in cities. “Some naturalists call that nearby nature,” Keller says. “It’s a great way to experience a piece of the natural world without wandering too far from home.”

    5    , consider treating yourself to a little outdoor play instead. It’s not called the great outdoors for nothing.

3 . Free Online Gentle Yoga Class

About this event

If you are worn out, stressed out, or just looking forward to relaxing your mind, body, and spirit, please join me for 75 minutes of gentle yoga. My mission is to make yoga accessible to everyone, regardless of race, age, gender, income level, or body size. The primary goal of the class is to help you find a small bit of peace and relaxation during stressful time. No experience necessary.

PLEASE READ

All classes are taught via TikTok from Los Angeles, California. You will receive a TikTok link about 30 minutes before class begins. Registration closes one hour before class begins. Only the first 500 applicants to join TikTok will be admitted to the class.

Frequently asked questions:

What time does the class start?

I am located in Los Angeles, California. Class is on Saturday at 6 pm. If you are located in a different time zone and are confused or unsure of when that is, here is a link to a world clock that will allow you to type in Los Angeles and your city to figure out when the class will begin: https://wrwrw.timeanddate.com/worldclock/meeting.html

What do I need?

Just a pillow and a blanket or towel. It doesn’t matter what kind—whatever you have at home will work just fine.

What should I wear?

I recommend wearing whatever makes you feel comfortable like sweatpants or shorts. The main purpose for the class is simply relaxation so we won’t be getting sweaty but you’ll need to wear something you can move around in a little.

What if I don’t want to be on camera?

No worries! You are more than welcome to turn your camera off. You will still be able to see and hear me but you won’t have to be seen if you prefer not to be.

5 . The Importance of Getting Kids to Be Active

Everyone knows that kids should be physically active and need to exercise regularly to be physically fit.     1    , regular physical activity is considered by most experts to be an important part of a healthy lifestyle. However, that doesn’t mean every child needs to spend four or five hours a day exercising.

How Much Exercise Do Kids Need?

It is recommended that kids should be physically active for at least 60 minutes per day.     2    . For example, if your eight-year-old played soccer for 20 minutes during PE at school and then played basketball with his friends for 40 minutes after school, he would meet the recommendation of 60 minutes of physical activity for that day.

Exercise and Calories

    3    . It can help them build self-respect, sleep better, have more energy, and reduce depression. And as most people know, along with a healthy diet, regular exercise is the best way to lose weight and prevent childhood obesity (肥胖). Since your child is not likely to get his exercise using exercise equipment, it can be hard to always tell how many calories he is burning while exercising.     4    , as long as your child is getting his 60 minutes or more of physical activity each day and maintaining a healthy diet.

Youth Exercise and Fitness

Remember that kids, even teens, don’t usually stick with exercise programs.     5    . Instead, kids do better with lifestyle exercise programs, such as active free play and organized team sports.

6 . According to a review of studies, running just a mile a day five or six days a week can vastly improve your health.     1     That’s less than an hour a week for most people, even beginners, in their aerobic workouts.

The Mayo Clinic reviewed studies published in PubMed since 2000 that included at least 500 runners and spent five years following to analyze the relationship between running and health.     2     Runners who ran five to six miles a week weighed less. They also had a lower risk of obesity than people who ran fewer than five miles a week or not at all. That’s not all. Non-runners were more likely to have high blood pressure, diabetes (糖尿病) and certain forms of cancer.     3    

In addition, evidence suggests there should be a maximum number of miles. Dr. Carl J. Lavie, lead author of the review, told that running hard for more than about an hour every day could slightly increase someone’s risks for heart problems, as well as for running-related injuries and disabilities.

    4     Changing the routine suddenly will unavoidably cause bad effects on health. If you want to be faster and competitive, you can still keep up your mileage.     5     You should also watch out for common running injuries as well as overtraining. If you begin to frequently injure yourself, that’s a sign you may be running too much. And it’s clear you can still get remarkable health benefits at decreased mileage.

8 . These days, many gyms require clients to wear masks or face coverings. The good news: research suggests they don't actually hold up your performance.

Researchers at the University of Saskatchewan gathered a group of 7 men and 7 women, ranging from slightly inactive to excellent cyclists and tested the effects of wearing a three-layer cloth face mask, a surgical mask, and no mask on their exercise performance.

The study participants started with a brief warm-up on a fixed bike, then took a progressive intensity exercise test, during which it was vital for them to keep the same pedal rate while the resistance was continually increased until exhaustion (疲惫不堪). Something like the heart rate was recorded every 30 seconds.

The results suggested that wearing a mask had no effect on performance or muscle oxygen levels. Since there was no difference in time to exhaustion between conditions, the highest power reached at the end of each test was similar in mask and no-mask conditions for all participants, Professor Chilibeck explained. Researchers also did not see any effects of the masks during exercise on blood oxygen levels, which wouldn't decrease if breathing was not affected.

And while droplet (飞沫) spread was not measured, all masks used were tested in a previous study in which they were shown to effectively minimize droplet spread, according to Chilibeck. Though the participants represented a wide range of fitness levels, it's important to note that these tests were conducted on a very small sample size, and more research is needed on larger populations to draw sweeping conclusions about the general population.

9 . Skateboarding can be traced back to the 1950s in America, where West Coast surfers started attaching wheels to wooden boards in order to “surf” on land. It became popular in the 1960s, with stars from Clint Eastwood to Katharine Hepburn pictured trying their hand at the sport. In 1965, ABC televised the National Skateboard Championships, which saw international skaters battled it out for a prize of $500.

In Japan, the All Japan Skateboard Association, founded in 1982, helped to gradually introduce the activity through surfing centers. Skater Taiichiro Nakamura, better known as “Chopper”, got his start in skateboarding in the late 1980s at the age of 15. When he was young, Chopper’s father always encouraged him to pursue an unconventional career, so Chopper practiced skating hard, eventually turning his hobby into a profession.

With his slight build, Chopper never thought he’d reach the same level as international skaters. So with many of his American counterparts(对手)pursuing bigger “air” and increasingly ambitious aerial(空中的) tricks, Chopper stuck close to the ground and pursued original street skating instead. He involved himself in his tricks with a sense of fun, inventing moves like the “potato roll”.

“Chopper made people realize that skateboarding isn’t just about copying other people’s styles,” says Hayate Kamimura, who skates with the Osaka Daggers and works as an instructor at a nearby skate park. “It’s about how you bring out your own creativity and invent a style that nobody else has.”

In the past, Chopper didn’t have many people to skate with. Now the sport has come to mainstream acceptance in Japan thanks to the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games, in which skating was included. However, there still aren’t enough skate parks where people can skate without disturbing others. If you skate on the street, you have to share that space with people walking by, who will get the impression that skateboarding is noisy, dangerous or scary.

10 . We’ve all heard the saying“Life slows down the older you get,” but that's certainly not true for Joan MacDonald.

The 75-year-old fitness influencer has accumulated an incredible following on social media, in part because she's chosen to actively reject the idea that aging robs you of your energy, focus and drive. In fact, MacDonald looks at movement as a “gift, ” and whether you're hitting the gym five days a week, or just beginning your fitness journey 一 it's never too late to take advantage of what your body was meant to do. Get moving.

“Just start with what you can, ” MacDonald tells Guideposts, org when asked what her best piece of advice would be for seniors looking to get active again.“If you can only walk three blocks, start there. Over time aim to add another block.”

And just because you' re starting small, it doesn’t' t mean that a short bike ride or quick stretch session isn't having an impact. The recommended amount of cardio （有氧运动）each day for most adults is 30 minutes, although even short bursts of movement can have a huge impact on decreasing the risk of being overweight, heart problems and other conditions.

The key is consistency. MacDonald knows that the road to healthy isn't easy and sometimes, the struggle can seem impossible to overcome. She had to battle against years of bad habits and recondition her body to push against her imagined limits. She tries to keep her social media channels focused on the positive aspects of working out and eating better, always encouraging and uplifting her followers, and never judging their difficulties 一 or her own. It's that attitude that she says is key to staying active.

“Focus on what is going right and well,” MacDonald says. “For me, I started my whole transformation because I wanted to feel better. I wanted energy to live my life! Now having my health, strength, and endurance is what keeps me committed.”