Rainy Season Exercises To Beat Monsoon Lethargy

With the onset of monsoon, while it pours outside, sleeping in, snuggling under a blanket and procrastinating your time away is a common feeling. Your fitness level might also take a back seat during these lazy days. Don’t let the weather conditions have an impact on your physical fitness with these exercises in monsoon!

Here’s what you need to know:

Symptoms of lethargy
Exercises to beat monsoon lethargy

Lethargy symptoms

The reason we feel more tired during the rainy season is that our body does not get adequate sunlight. This produces a sleep-inducing hormone – melatonin. With monsoon arises lethargy symptoms like fatigue, sleepiness low energy changes in mood as a result of seasonal affective disorder (SAD). Exercising not only strengthens your muscles, makes you flexible, and helps you stay fit, but working out also releases endorphins or happy hormones which reduces stress, anxiety, and depression.

Exercises to beat monsoon lethargy

Vaishnavi Boora, the Monsoon Fitness Expert on Aditya Birla Health Insurance’s Activ Living community, is here to help you drive all that lethargy away with exercises that you will enjoy and which do not feel like a workout.

Exercising does not always have to be a high-intensity workout at the gym. Take a look at certain simple exercises in monsoon which can energise you immediately, that too from the comfort of your home:

1. Jumping Jacks is a good cardio choice that is often included as a part of warm-up exercises to work up your entire body. This exercise gets your heart rate up, engages your core, and strengthens your leg muscles. This exercise can be practiced in various permutations and combination, such as twist jacks, star jumps, cross-jack, squat jack and plan jumping jacks, that further improves coordination.

2. Lateral Steps, also called lateral shuffle, target your hip abductors, calves, quads, hamstrings, and glutes. Beginners can take one step at a time while others can improvise and turn this work out into agility training. This exercise will help you move faster and improve balance and coordination between the mind and body.

Lateral Steps

3. For those who want a smaller waist, Cross Body Oblique Crunch is the exercise for you. This standing criss-cross crunch engages your core. It targets the oblique muscles and tightens the side ab wall effectively.

4. Squat Punches tones and strengthens your thighs, glutes, and arm muscles in one exercise. You can also make your own improvisations. Go in a squat position, stand up, shift your weight to one leg and punch with the opposite arm. Repeat the same on the other side.

Besides performing these exercises in monsoon, you can also play a sport with your kids at home like table-tennis or burn those calories while dancing or engaging in a fun session of Zumba with your family. Apart from exercising, a balanced and nutritious diet goes a long way in keeping you fit.

Squat Punches

Do not compromise on your fitness. Make your workouts enjoyable with Activ Living in Monsoon. To live a healthy standard of life, visit the nutrition and mindfulness page on the Activ Living Blog.