Curious to find out what a 28-day Non-Exercise movement challenge is all about?

When you live with mobilty, pain, fatigue or other health issues, exercise can be a tricky topic.

Exercise and movement are a foundational step to keep your body healthy, and prevent future health issues.

But what if you currently live with mobility or breathing issues or debilitating exhaustion or weakness and pain, and exercise is more difficult if not impossible?

How do you reap the benefits of exercise when you struggle with mobility and/or fatigue issues?

It’s a question I had to ask myself – and then search for an answer.

When I came across something called NEAT Movement, I realised I’d found an answer – a form of exercise those with chronic health could harness to boost their well-being.

The cool part is that this will also benefit you if for whatever reason you spend many hours a day sitting, such as driving or office work.

My goal today is to share a simple fun challenge to help you experience the benefits of movement even when you have chronic health issues or struggle with regular exercise.

If you have a serious health condition, always read and discuss any self-care challenge with your health provider.

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NEAT stands for Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis, which I describe as Non-Exercise Movement, which means any activity you do that isn’t sleep or formal exercise.

Getting up and walking to the kettle and making a drink then walking back to your chair is an example of NEAT exercise.

Your body was designed for many hours of NEAT exercise a day with short bursts of high activity (formal exercise) and enough restful sleep.

We have created a modern life where the brain can be occupied and busy, while the body sits and doesn’t move i.e. transport, office work, TV, mobile phone and gaming.

We continue to find ways to reduce our daily physical activity and make life easier.

Perhaps it’s no surprise that researchers have found that all this sitting, even if we go to the gym a few times a week, is not good for us.

In fact sitting is said to be the new smoking.

Many of us, whether we have health issues or not, can find ourselves sitting for hours at a time. So what can we do?

Benefits of increasing Non-Exercise Movement

Being sedentary is directly associated with more long-term health issues.

The good news is that almost all of us can easily reduce this risk, even with mobility/health issues, which is why I created the Non-Exercise Movement Challenge for you.

Here are some of the health benefits of increasing your NEAT movement.

• Helps with Muscle recovery
• Reduces stress
• Improves cardiovascular health
• Helps control blood sugar levels
• Reduces risk of chronic disease
• Lower levels of inflammation in the body
• Is kind to your joints (low impact)
• Improves mood
• Burns calories

Non-Exercise movement is kinder to Fatigue

Regular exercise such as cardio or weight training while providing many benefits can make fatigue worse and sometimes cravings as well, especially for those with chronic health conditions.

Because it’s gentle action stays under the radar, NEAT movement does not tend to cause fatigue. According to research, 70% of your energy goes to maintaining daily body functions while just 10% of energy is reserved for blasts of intense exercise.

The remaining 20% of energy is allocated for NEAT movement.

The aim of the challenge is to help you make use of your full 20% of available energy.

Just remember the goal is to increase ‘gentle movement’ so you can reap the full benefits.

Do you need this Non-exercise Movement challenge?

How active each day are you?

It’s a good to have a general idea of how active you are before you start the challenge.

When you have chronic health issues you may find that you have ‘good’ and ‘bad’ pain, fatigue and mobility days and this impacts your activity levels.

You may work out every week, and have good fitness levels, but your daily life still involves sitting for many hours a day.

Maybe even carrying out normal daily activity can leave you exhausted.

There are many reasons why you may not be as active as you would like. 

I have tried to find ideas for every situation in the Non-exercise Movement Challenge and hope you will join in.

In this POST I share 65 Fun Non-Exercise Movement Ideas to Try

How to do the Non-Exercise Movement Challenge

Just like with regular exercise you need to set yourself a simple workout plan to follow.

I have offered suggestions, but it is best to set your own goals.

You can choose to plan your daily movements in minutes or reps. Try both and see which motivates you most!

You could set a goal to complete 20, 30 or 40 minutes a day of Non-Exercise Movement. Ideally this could be split into shorter 5-minute sessions throughout the day.

Or

You could set a goal to complete a certain number of repetitions. 

Most works outs include specific movements that are repeated a certain number of times – such as toe taps or lifting weights a certain way. 

You can create your own Non-Exercise Movement workouts! See my example below.

 Plan your non-exercise movements for the week ahead.

1. Choose your non-exercise movement/s for the week ahead or full 28-days.
2. Plan how many minutes or reps of each movement you will do each day – try to spread them throughout the day. 
3. Track your progress each day.
4. Increase the challenge gently each week. I.e. increase the minutes or reps.
5. Celebrate at the end of 28 days with a healthy reward!

Start gently and then increase the amount if you find it easy!

The real challenge here is being consistent – for 28-days. Don’t forget I have included FREE support such as a daily tracker for movement HERE.

5 variations of Non-Exercise Movement Challenges

I found so many different ideas of how you can increase your non-exercise movement that I decided to split the challenge into 5 different sections.

Each challenge takes one NEAT movement idea for you to try, experience, adapt and keep what works for you.

You decide how you want to do them.

You can choose certain challenges for ‘bad’ days and others for ‘good’ days.

You can start with one week of challenge 1, then move on to ADD challenge 2 for the second week, and so on.

By the end of the 28-days you could be completing all 5 challenges throughout your day

Or you can pick one challenge idea and focus on increasing your daily goal for the 28 days. Then move on to the next challenge and gradually increase that over the following 28 days.

Or any combination that suits you and your situation.

Have a read through the following challenges, and spend some time trying them out before you start the challenge. Don’t forget I also provided you with Ideas for each challenge HERE.

Prefer a quick overview of this challenge? I’ve got you – ‘Jump to recipe’!

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Challenge 1 – Fidget more this week

Sitting or lying with very little movement will both burn around 50 calories an hour and the lack of movement can cause many health issues long-term.

Fidgeting is a surprising hero of Non-exercise and is a perfect challenge for ‘bad’ days. Positive fidgeting can help stop or relieve bad habits and worry. Research Link.

The trick with fidgeting is to do lots of it on days where you can’t do much else.

 Aim for 5 minutes of fidgeting at a time – you could set a timer. Toe tapping or finger tapping are easy fidgets! 

Fidget through regular ‘waiting’ times such as TV or YouTube adverts!

Challenge 2 – Stand more this week

The goal is to challenge yourself to increase the amount of time you stand.

Standing uses up more NEAT energy than sitting, sitting uses about* 50 calories per hour while standing can burn up to 90 calories per hour.

How many minutes a day do you currently stand? Can you increase this?

Can you challenge yourself to stand for 1 extra hour per day each week?

As an example if you sit between 7 and 10pm (3 Hours) challenge yourself to stand 30 minutes (6 x 5 minutes) of that time. 

Where can you stand more in daily life?

Challenge 3 – Active sitting challenge

What if you can’t stand or walk and need to sit for hours at a time? This Active sitting challenge uses seated workouts as inspiration.

Now an actual 30- or 40-minute seated workout would be classed as exercise – something you may already be doing.

But for NEAT movement we are finding ways to gently move the body throughout your day

Start by aiming for 5 minutes at a time. If you know you sit for many hours each day, you might like to challenge yourself to 5 minutes of active sitting every hour.

 Over time you can keep increasing the amount of time.

Challenge 4 – Calf raises this week

How many minutes per day will you challenge yourself to complete?

This challenge can be done seated, assisted standing, standing and advanced with steps and weights.

Calf Raises (Heel lifts) for improved lower body circulation

Calf raises are a fantastic NEAT movement to include every day.

There has been a lot of talk recently about the many benefits of calf raises, including improvements in lower body circulation, in both health and fitness research. 

Strong, flexible calf muscles result in better stability and balance. 

Calf raises can also prevent many foot and ankle problems such as strains, sprains, splints and Plantar Fasciitis.

Standing (and assisted standing) calf raises activate the two muscles that run down the back of the lower leg: the gastrocnemius and soleus.

Seated calf raises only works the soleus muscle – but you can still receive benefits

How to do simple calf raises

1. Sit or stand with both feet on a flat surface with your toes pointed straight ahead.
2. Lift one or both heels off the floor to flex your calf muscle.
3. Pause for moment, then slowly return to the floor. That’s one rep.

Challenge 5 – Increase your Non-exercise Movement in Daily life

This is the final challenge and is probably the most well-known way to increase your NEAT Movement.

How many ways can you find to walk, pace, bend, and stretch in daily life?

The aim for this challenge is to add up all the minutes you are already active through normal daily life and increase the time.

This can transform your motivation to doing chores around the home!

65 Fun Non-Exercise Movement Ideas to Try

There are so many fun ways you can increase your Non-Exercise Movement (and boost your well-being) so I have listed them all together HERE

After 28-days

Don’t forget to compare your before and after assessments, noticing any improvements. If you have to start gently and slowly build up – keep going – as it may take a few months for you to notice improvements in your well-being.

Just like with regular exercise work-outs you can track your progress, noticing how you are able to increase the amount and intensity over weeks and months.

Remember Non-exercise movement is something we should include every day for life.

Need inspiration and Ideas of what exercises to include in this challenge?

Summary

The key with all these challenges is to be as consistent as you can over the 28 days. Find ways to make it fun, such as asking a friend to join you and getting creative with your tracking.

Don’t forget you can sign-up to the make-selfcare-simple newsletter and join me as I complete the challenges with you and share free resources such as tracking and motivation.

Think of this as a little gift to get you started—a clear, simple plan for your first self-care challenge. Grab your FREE Toolkit now.

“Instant access—start your challenge today.”

Want to Save or Print a summary of this challenge? Click on this handy ‘Challenge Recipe’!