Y - Yoga

Yoga exercises strengthen your body and make it more flexible.  Yoga also calms your mind and gives you energy.  In active sports or strenuous exercises, you use up energy.  In yoga classes, students report that they feel tranquil after a class, yet have more energy.  Slow and steady motion is the key to going into or coming out of the postures. You hold a yoga pose for several seconds or even minutes and give attention to full, quiet breath. 

A yoga session is designed for balance.  People of all ages can practice yoga exercises.  They are easily modified to meet your needs and physical condition.  Don't be put off by the difficult looking postures you may see in a yoga book or video.   A skilled teacher can adapt most exercises by using chairs, cushions, even a wall or other props.  A yoga practice can be tailor-made just for you. . Never compete with yourself or others.  Yoga is a stress-free but powerful way to exercise.  Yoga is good for increasing your flexibility and relieving stress.

Deep breathing is both calming and energizing. The energy you feel from a few minutes of careful breathe is not nervous or hyper, but that calm, steady energy we all need. Slow, steady, and quiet breathing gives a message to your nervous system: Be calm.

Here is one 5-minute Breath Break. (Read through the instructions several times before you try the practice.)

1. Sit with your spine as straight as possible. Use a chair if necessary but don't slump into it. Feet flat on the floor with knees directly over the center of your feet. Use a book or cushion under your feet if they do not rest comfortably on the floor. Hands are on the tops of your legs.

2. Close your eyes gently and let them rest behind closed lids.

3. Think about your ribs, at the front, back, and at the sides of your body.  Your lungs are behind those ribs.

4. Feel your lungs filling up, your ribs expanding out and up.  Feel your lungs emptying, your ribs coming back down and in.   Don't push the breath.

5. The first few times you do this, do it for 2 to 3 minutes, then do it for up to 5 to 10 minutes. At first, set aside a time at least once a day to do this.  When you learn how good it makes you feel, you'll want to do it at other times as well.

Just as one stressful situation goes into your next challenge, relaxing for a few minutes every day gradually carries over into the rest of your daily life and activities.

E - Exercise

25 Ways Get 10 Mins Of Fitness Exercise

Experts recommend working out 45 minutes to an hour a day (30 minutes for beginners) for weight loss and fitness. But if you're like most women, you don't always have a block of 30 to 60 minutes a day to devote exclusively to doing your workouts.

You can still exercise--you just need to sneak in the equivalent in resourceful ways . "The idea is to keep moving," says fitness expert Ann Grandjean, EdD.  "Get a cordless phone or put a long cord on your regular phone, and walk when you talk.  Find whatever works for you and just move.  Park half a mile from the mall and walk.  Take the stairs instead of the elevator.  Those little, itty-bitty things add up."

Every Stolen Moment Adds Up

Lest you think that short bursts of activity have a negligible effect on your fitness program, think again.  One study found that women who split their exercise into 10-minute increments were more likely to exercise consistently, and lost more weight after 5 months, than women who exercised for 20 to 40 minutes at a time.

In a landmark study conducted at the University of Virginia, exercise physiologist Glenn Gaesser, PhD, asked men and women to complete 15 10-minute exercise routines a week.  After just 21 days, the volunteers' aerobic fitness was equal to that of people 10 to 15 years younger.  Their strength, muscular endurance, and flexibility were equal to those of people up to 20 years their junior.

In yet another study, researchers at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore found that for improving health and fitness in inactive adults, many short bursts of activity are as effective as longer, structured workouts.  "It would be useful for people to get out of the all-or-nothing mind-set that unless they exercise for 30 minutes, they're wasting their time," says Gaesser.

Breaking exercise into small chunks on your overscheduled days can also keep your confidence up, says Harold Taylor, time management expert and owner of Harold Taylor Time Consultants in Toronto, who has written extensively on the subject. "Skipping exercise altogether is 'de-motivational'--you feel depressed and guilty," Taylor says. "If you skip it, you tend to figure, 'What's the use? I can't keep up with it anyway.'  Yet as long as you make some effort each day, that motivates you onward.  Success breeds success."