Game your time on your phone

How much time do you spend on the phone each day? A few hours? Likely, isn’t it? And what do you do when you speak on the phone? If you are seated at your desk or in a cubicle, I beg you, do something while talking – at least lift some weights. If you need to type on your computer while on the phone, flex your feet or stretch them out under your table. Then draw circles with your toes. Stretch your hamstrings.

The easiest thing to do, of course, is to walk while you talk on the phone. This is something that all of us do these days, which itself is a problem. In my building’s garden, I can barely talk to neighbours because everyone is on their phone while walking, except the elderly, who know the art of chit-chat and its benefits. But back to walking. If you have a one-hour conference call, get yourself some excellent headphones and walk around your office floor while on call. Climb some stairs.

I find standing on tiptoe while I talk on the phone is also great, particularly if you have connectivity issues and cannot move around too much. It doesn’t take too much room; you don’t need a large office to do this, you can do this pretty much anywhere.

Recently, I have found a killer exercise to do while on the phone at home. Get one of those large balance balls that you use to sit on or you use for Pilates. Do the yoga pose called “chakrasana” on it. It is like a backbend on the ball.

Sit on the ball and bend back till your head touches the ball. You are almost in a convex, inverted C position. Then, talk on the phone in that position. Your middle will get a nice, inverted bend, your stomach muscles will get a gentle stretch, and your head will arch backwards and rest, which rarely happens. The only problem is that your voice will change to the point where everyone will ask if you are inside a well or have the flu.

Caveat: You need to have some experience in yoga before taking baby steps into this pose. It is a bit disorienting at first and you need to figure out what to do if the ball rolls sideways. You don’t want to lose your balance. Take slow steps.

If this ball pose is difficult or you don’t have a ball, then consider lying on your bed with your head hanging from the edge. This is an easier pose, and your head will still get to arch backwards. The only problem: your friends will wonder why you don’t want to hang up. And why does your voice sound so strange, almost strangled?

Another exercise I do while on the phone is to wall-sit: pretend I am sitting on a chair while using the wall for back support. My mother calls me at 7 am every day, and when I talk to her, I wall-sit. Our calls are short, often under two minutes. We talk mostly to hear each other’s voices – have you had coffee, that sort of thing? So, stretching or wall-sitting is easy.

You can also use tools such as pillows, balls, chairs or whatever is at hand, to push yourself into an unusual stretch or a pose while on the phone. It is a way to exercise without the pressure of exercising.

In his book Tiny Habits, Stanford Professor BJ Fogg uses an “If This Then That (IFTT)” approach to exercise. My version is this: If I lift my phone, I will do some exercise. It could be anything, but as long as the phone is in my hand, I will stretch or jump or wall-sit.

Linking movement or exercise with your mobile phone is a powerful habit that forces you to incorporate pain (exercise) with the pleasure and addictiveness of reaching for the phone. It requires willpower for the first several times, but hopefully, later, it will become an unthinking habit. After all, as writer Annie Dillard famously said, “How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.”

Please don’t think I do this exercise stuff every time I pick up my phone. But I do it when I think about it. I do it occasionally. And for our purposes, that is enough.

Lunge in the elevator

In 2010, IBM surveyed some 6,500 office workers across multiple cities in the United States to find out how much time they spent waiting for elevators and inside elevators. It turns out that IBM’s New York workers spent a total of 16.6 years waiting for elevators and 5.9 years inside elevators, when tallied over 12 months. Readers of this book likely spend a ton of time in elevators, too. This is both limiting and liberating. Limiting because you cannot speak on your phone as the reception is poor. Liberating for the same reason.

There are a number of things you can do in the elevator: read a book (maybe this one), say your prayers silently or check your phone, which is what most of us do anyway. These options are offered up in case you are tired of the usual things we do while stuck in an elevator – stare stonily up at the floor numbers and wait for that reassuring “ping” sound that will allow us to escape that claustrophobic space.

Now, here’s a thought, and you know what’s coming, right? Why not use those few moments to get some exercise in? After all, you missed your Pilates class this morning. Since the elevator is crowded, try upper body stretches. Clasp your hands behind your back and roll your shoulders back to combat the hunch that comes from working at computers all day.

The other thing is to face the wall – away from all those sweaty bodies – and flex your feet so that your heel is on the floor and your toes are touching the wall. This gives your calves and lower legs a nice stretch. Lean forward to amp it up a notch.

If you are an entrepreneur with a start-up, you can practise your elevator pitch, thus flexing, quite literally, your muscles and your mind.

If you are alone inside, the best thing to do in an elevator is to lunge. This is particularly true if it is a small to medium-sized elevator. You know the kind where you crowd in, shuffle around like a penguin, and hope that everyone is wearing deodorant? This is exactly the size of an elevator that is perfect for lunges. The length is perfect to spread your feet forward and do, say, ten lunges. Halt only if the elevator stops in the middle and folks enter.

Then again, if you are halfway through your lunges, why bother letting go?

Excerpted with permission from 108 Ways To Live Your Best Life: Tiny Habits for Big Changes, Shoba Narayan, HarperCollins India.

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