(words scraping) (baby chuckling) - Welcome to InPACT@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.

Everything is changing in our world.

School, homes, jobs, sports, family.

This time in the world is asking for us to be flexible.

Flexible means bend with the pressure, but not break.

We can adapt and be flexible, especially with practices like this one we're going to try together today.

As always, we start with 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.

(tool chiming) (upbeat music) Okay.

Let's get started with our bodies.

Let's think about our bodies being flexible.

They can get tight and uncomfortable when we're stressed out or people are stressed out around us.

So we're gonna practice some stretching to make our bodies more flexible.

We're gonna start like we always do with that grounding.

So we're gonna have our feet on the ground.

Pay attention to the soles of your feet on the ground.

Feel that supportive floor underneath you.

And really ground down.

Now we're gonna take a deep breath with our rainbow arms and breathe in (inhaling) touch and breathe out (exhaling) This time we're gonna change it up a little bit.

Breathe in (inhaling) touch, high five and forward fold.

Folding from your hips all the way as far as you can go.

Maybe you can touch your toes.

Maybe you can touch the floor.

We feel that stretch in the backs of your legs, your hamstrings and your calves.

Maybe try to deepen your stretch, let your head be heavy like a coconut and hang.

And let's take a hold of our elbows.

And we'll be a ragdoll.

We're gonna be a ragdoll because we're just gonna flop around like a doll would.

Sway back and forth.

Get your hips into it.

Then we're gonna shake our head yes.

Shake our head no.

And get ready to come up with a deep breath (inhaling and exhaling) And we're gonna rainbow breath back up to the top (inhaling) and pretend you're holding a big balloon or a beach ball.

Either one is fine.

And you're going to side bend over one way.

Keep a hold of your beach ball or your balloon all the way as far as you can to open up that side body and then back up to center and reaching over, holding the beach ball as far as you can stretching and becoming more flexible with our bodies.

Back up to center.

And gently put your beach ball or your balloon down and back up.

So now remember our Mountain Pose.

We're gonna make it wider.

We're going to have wide legs and we're going to do our rainbow arms down to a forward fold.

Trying to get more flexible in our bodies and breathe in (inhaling) touch, high five and forward fold.

And try to make your hands flat on the ground if your body will do that, just give it a try.

Then you can bend one knee and go over to the side and feel that stretch inside of our leg.

Back to center and bend the other knee.

Really feel us getting more flexible into that other side.

Back to center, and deep breath in (inhaling) to come up, okay.

We're gonna go down to seated now.

So I invite you to sit down right on your floor and we are going to put our legs straight out in front of us.

Big stretch up, (inhaling) breath in, use your breath for your movement and breathe out and the forward fold (exhaling) Really stretch the backs of those legs and back and breathe in (inhaling) and forward fold.

Now we will become butterflies.

Pull your legs in, you can hold on to your toes and bounce your knees up and down like a butterfly.

And now we're gonna make us more flexible in our hips and our legs by taking our elbows and pushing down on your knees.

Really get into those hips and become more flexible there.

We sit a lot in our online school.

Now I want you to pick up one leg with one hand and then cradle your knee in your other hand.

And we're going to rock it like a baby.

And see we're really getting into those hips and your bottom, so we can become more flexible.

When we sit a lot, it can become tight here.

And we also hold a lot of stress and feelings here in our hips, in our body.

So let's pull up our other leg, cradle your knee and rock it like a baby.

Great, to get rid of some of that stress.

All right, let's sit criss-cross applesauce now and think about how our bodies got more flexible in this practice today.

And that will help our feelings, and our mind to become more flexible because everything's connected, our body, our minds, our feelings.

One more deep breath in (inhaling) out (exhaling) Great job becoming more flexible.

I hope you enjoyed today's mindfulness activity.

InPACT@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 inpact@home.umich.edu.

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

We will see you again during our next workout.

(words scraping) (baby chuckling) - [Announcer] Support for this program is provided by the Michigan Public Health Institute and the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services.

(soft music)