(birds chirping) (child laughs) - Welcome to Inpact at Home, where we practice interrupting prolonged sitting with activity.

I'm Heather Lewis and I'm here for the next eight minutes to bring mindfulness to your day.

Mindfulness means paying attention to one thing right now and it helps our brains and bodies become stronger, healthier, and happier.

Let's get started.

Today's mindful movements are all about building strength and holding poses like things we know like animals.

Holding poses is helpful because it makes our mind pay attention to what we're trying to do with our bodies, especially when it's challenging.

Helps us to be more mindful.

It also builds our strength and our muscles as we hold the shapes with our bodies.

Now as always, we start with our mindfulness to bring us to the here and now, listen for the chime for as long as it lasts.

Put your hand on your heart when you can't hear it anymore.

Here we go.

(chime rings) (upbeat music) Okay.

Let's get started.

We're gonna start with being a tree that's giving shade to a panda right next to it.

So we're gonna start in our grounded position like we always like to start with, to feel that solid floor beneath us, supporting us, solid mountain pose.

Now, I want you to put your hands at your side and you're gonna take one leg, doesn't matter which one, and you're gonna bring it up and lay it next to the other leg.

Kind of like a kickstand on a bike or a motorcycle.

And you'll notice that you might be a little tippy.

You have to balance.

This is the balanced pose.

Now, if you want a challenge, you can slide it up to your calf right underneath your knee.

And then that's even more tippy.

Remember to be kind to yourself.

You're trying your best.

You're building your strength.

And if you wanna get really challenging, this is gonna be really challenging for me.

You can pull your leg up to right to the top of your leg and I'm not gonna be able to let it go.

That's too challenging for me today.

And that's okay.

I'll be kind to myself and I'll go back down to where it's more comfy for me, right here.

You decide what's comfy for you.

Okay.

Now let's grow our branches.

I'm gonna go down to kickstand 'cause I'm a little tippy.

We're gonna grow our branches and give shade for that panda underneath.

Awesome.

You ready to try the other side?

Now, usually one side feels different than the other.

So pay attention to that, be mindful of it.

Again, we start in our mountain, hands to side, bring your other leg up and rest it next to your standing straight leg.

And remember, it's like a kickstand on our bike.

And you might feel a little tippy like I feel, depending on your floor and your muscles.

Let's try to slide it up to our calf, right below our knee to be challenging.

And remember, there's that one more big one right at the top of our leg, that's still too challenging for me.

So I'm gonna bring it back down and be kind to myself.

Let's grow our branches.

(sighs) Give shade to that panda under our branches.

Great job.

All right, this one is challenging.

This is the rhino post.

Do you know what a rhinoceros looks like?

Has a big horn on top of its head.

So what we're gonna do is we're gonna get down on our hands and knees.

And your hands are right below your shoulders, and your knees are right below your hips.

And then, we're going to get up on our toes and be in plank position.

This is plank.

We're straight like a table.

Plank position.

Now I'm gonna scooch my hand over underneath my face a little bit.

And then I'm gonna bring one arm up like a rhino horn.

Oh, it's challenging.

Can you feel it in your abs, your tummy, your legs, your shoulder, your arm, and down.

Let's try our other arm.

Ooh, this is challenging.

My heart's beating.

Can you feel that too?

And your other arm goes up, rhino horn, hold it, hold it, hold it, and down.

(sighs) Let's go down to our knees.

Let's take a little break.

Let's take a breath, my heart's beating really fast.

That was so challenging.

(sighs) Good.

Okay.

Now we're gonna lay on our tummies for just a second and we're gonna become a cobra, a snake.

So, on your tummy.

Lay down if your floor is not too yucky, and then push up, breath in like a cobra and hiss, (hisses) like a cobra.

And down.

And push up, breathe in and hiss like a cobra.

(hisses) Good job.

All right, back to our knees.

We're gonna stand up and we are gonna pretend we are riding a horse.

So the animal is right between our legs and we are gonna turn our feet out, so they point to the walls, that wall and that wall.

And then we're going to squat down like we're riding on a horse.

The horse is underneath us, supporting us, and just hold.

And breath.

(sighs) Be mindful.

Do you feel your quads?

Those are the tops of your thighs, mine are burning.

Are yours burning?

Deep breath in.

(sighs) And stand up.

That feels so much better, doesn't it?

Let's shake that out.

All right.

We worked really, really hard today on our strength and our balance.

So I would like to end our time together with paying attention to what our body feels like and taking a couple of breaths.

Let's do balloon breath.

(sighs) Let's do another.

(sighs) Great job working on your strength.

I hope you enjoyed today's mindfulness activity.

Inpact at Home is a chance to apply the skills you may have learned in your PE class to improve your health.

To learn more about the health benefits associated with daily movement, visit inpactathome.umich.edu.

Now don't forget to fill out your daily log.

We will see you again during our next workout.

(birds chirping) (child laughs) - [Announcer] Support for this program is provided by the Michigan Public Health Institute and the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services.

(upbeat music)