The Power of Two Minute Moves with Lizzie Williamson

0:04 This is Crappita Happy and I am your host Castunn. I'm a clinical and coaching psychologist and mindfulness meditation teacher and of course author of the Crappita Happy books. In this show, I bring you conversations with interesting, inspiring, intelligent people who are experts in their field and who have something of value to share that will help you feel less crappy and more happy. We all know how important it is to incorporate movement into our daily lives, but many of us struggle to find the time, especially if it means getting out in the car, going to the gym or a yoga class, or even meeting a friend for a walk. But Lizzie Williamson is here today with the answer to all of our excuses. And not only will she convince you that you don't need to hit the gym for an hour, but even if you do, you will still benefit enormously from her two Minute Moves solution.

1:07 Lizzie is an ex professional dancer, She's a certified pt A, keynote speaker, founder of two Minute Moves, author, and her brand new book is called The Active Workday Advantage. Believe me when I tell you that in the next half hour. Lizzie is going to convince you not only of the health benefits to incorporating micro movements throughout your day, but you're going to improve your energy, focus, mood, productivity, The list goes on and on. She's such an energizer bunny. Here she is to share the active workday advantage. Lizzie Williamson, Welcome to the crap It a happy podcast. Such a pleasure to have you here today.

1:47 Well, I have been happy dancing for the last hour knowing I'm going to get to talk to you, so thank you for having me. Lizzie, you have been the champion of two minute moves for a long time. Now you're a global phenomenon. Let's just start from the beginning. Though we've all heard the phrase sitting is the new smoking, which is terrifying for most of us who sit at our desks for extended periods of time. Can you explain to us why is being sedentary such a health risk? Yeah, because you think, really, what's wrong with sitting? I mean, especially if maybe we're heading to the gym in the morning or having a walk at night and we're doing lots of sitting. Doesn't really matter. But here's the thing.

2:28 It's actually what the World Health Organization and government guidelines talk about is this prolonged periods of sitting without breaking it up with physical activity. So if you think about it, when you're there for hours not really moving very much, your heart doesn't have to work that hard, which can lead up to a build up of fatty asses that can clog our arteries. We're much more susceptible to heart disease if we do a lot of prolonged sitting. In fact, there's a study that shows even by reducing sitting time by one hour a day, decrease your chance of heart disease by twenty six percent. Wow. If you also think about our metabolism, how that doesn't have to work very hard as well when we're doing a lot of sitting.

3:11 And then there's our body. When we're in this stuck position, our bodies aren't designed for that. Neither is our brain in fact, and so what happens is it's so stuck we become weaker, more inflexible, and so then when we go off and do something like you know, bend down and get some dishes out of the dishwasher or whatever it is, our body goes ah I'm not used to moving like that. I've lost my flexibility, I've lost my mobility, all that sort of stuff, and then we can get some serious consequences and we're much more susceptible to things like injuries. I find that really fascinating. Some of the stats that you put in your your new book about shortening our lifespan actually shortening based on the number of hours a day we sit. I mean when I say it's terrifying, it really is scary stuff and worth knowing, and we really worth understanding that Lizzie you mentioned about, you know, we'll go to do some movement and we suddenly injure ourselves.

4:10 And I'm sitting here right now with this sciatica pain, which I've been struggling with for the last four to six weeks, I would say. And it started with me joining the gym, thinking I'm doing a great thing, new year, get back, do some movement. Don't feel like I'm moving enough, And sure enough, over a period of a week or two, everything started to stiffen up until suddenly things are just not moving at all. So I completely hear you on that, and I've. Gone from whispering to you to screaming at you. Oh my god. And you know, as I was reading your book too, I was thinking, you know, the irony is like the if there's a silver lining here, it's that now that I have this back pain and this like all of this tightness and tension causing me so much frustration that now every single morning when I wake up, the first thing I do is I've been down into a child's post and I start doing some glute stretches and I'm having to move my body. I cannot sit at my desk for long periods. I have to get up and walk and stretch. So it's a really good thing that I'm doing that I maybe just should have been doing it, Lalia. And so there's a bit of a note to self there, like, okay, once it's healed, because now right now I'm just like, oh my god, get this thing fixed so I can get back to the gym or get back to doing the things that I really enjoy doing it. Oh, just so that I can be free from pain, to be honest, But the key is, even when you're free from pain, to keep up all of these good healthy habits and this regular movement, isn't

5:42 it Lizzie, I just want to pick up on something you said, which was even if you're going to the gym in the morning or going for a walk, because I think that's an important point too, Like you make the point that this is not enough. Yeah, well that's what research is telling us, which is fascinating because you think that it would be. And now that's to take nothing away from how brilliant that is to do that stuff, But it doesn't in a way then give us permission to spend then the rest of our day cententry and were speaking of gym and things like that. I mean, you know, there are also a lot of people who will say, well, I'd love to go to the gym, but where do I find the time for that? So this idea of incorporating these small amounts of movement through your day is probably really appealing idea to some people.

6:30 So where did this idea of two minute moves first start from? With you, Lizzie, like that that's your big thing. So how did that come about? It came from a place that I was at And I know that this is a common story for many of us that we reach this sometimes a rock bottom place or a dark place. Something we need to make a change, and we discover something that works for us, and then we then want to share it with other people. You found this powerful thing, and for me, that thing was this moment in my life when I had a baby and a toddler and postnatal depression. It was fifteen years ago, and I could not get myself to do the thing that I knew was going to make myself feel good, to do the thing that before this point I would hear of people who had depression and were struggling with their mental health. I think, you just got to do this, and that's exercise, easy, simple. I'd always love to move. I'd been a professional dancer, I've done all my life, and then here I was, at this moment in time. I couldn't get myself to do it, and I felt so stuck, so incapable of action. That the catalyst for me was going to see my doctor finally and talking to her and talking through my treatment options and all of that stuff, and she telling me I needed to get that oxygen mask on first before assisting others. And so the next day I thought, I've got to somehow get myself self moving, and I went

8:01 to my kitchen bench, put my hands on it like it was my ballet bar, and I got myself to do just one pleia, which is a knee bend in ballet. And I cannot believe now how hard that moment was for me to do it. How simple is it, hands on the bench do a plia, But it felt so hard, and I got myself to do another one, and another one. I couldn't do very long. It was very short amount of time, but there was something about that moment that I thought, Okay, do that again tomorrow, and so that's what I did, And then I did it the next day and the next and the next, and as the months went on slowly, I started to feel I think this ripple effect from that moment. I'd start to be able to do a bit more movement in my day, and some push ups at my kitchen bench while I was waiting for the kettle to boil, or and sometimes that two minutes would go longer, sometimes not. It didn't matter.

8:57 I got more professional help. It was this first little step so I could rediscover the power of movement and that it didn't have to be this way that I always thought it had to be this certain amount of time this location, this intensity, wearing certain active where that it could actually just be this moment that I could take whereever, whenever, And it totally shifted my whole mindset. And then I started to share it. There's no social media then, so I'd film a little video of a friend of a friend I knew who was struggling with her mental health, and then someone else's maybe a little piece of the pie of their mental health program what they needed to do. Social media came to be YouTube videos, the book that all that sort of stuff, and just kind of grew from there. But the mission has always been the same, is that exercise can be hard if you don't have any time, if you're exhausted, if you're struggling mentally. The list goes on, how can we make it easier for ourselves because it is possible to do the thing that really does help the way that we feel.

10:00 I'm glad that you shared that story because I think there will be people listening who have in that place, or they've been in that place and it feels so hard, it feels so impossible, and just making it something that is just this micro step, just the tiniest thing that can be the first step towards you know, doing it again and again and building some momentum, because I think the other thing the first thing we come up against when it comes to this idea of exercise is I don't have time. It's too hard, it hurts. How am I going to fit that in? But then you start talking about well it can just be two minutes, and what comes up is well, what good.

10:42 Will that do? Like, what's the point of that? Almost so Lizzie tell us what is the point of that? And what good can it do? It's on two different levels. I think the first level is actually there's a whole lot of evidence and research that tells us that it is still really beneficial. In fact, we know that that one hundred and fifty minutes of recommended exercise in and our week, you can break that up as much as you want and still get the benefits. We also know that, say, for example, a one minute walk every thirty minutes, is a study by Columbia University, how great that is to help regulate our blood sugar levels, how it helps to decrease fatigue and improve our mood. There's another study by Edith Cohen University here in Australia, and this study actually went quite viral around the world because they show that even three seconds a day of saying lifting a weight three seconds impacted our muscle strength one, two three. The second level of this is that when we actually take this moment and do something for ourselves, something that makes us maybe feel that little bit stronger, that releases some lovely things like endocannabinoids. Our body's chill peel helps to release myokens, which comes from our muscles, which helps us feel more hopeful. When we do that, we get this amazing inner pharmacy inside of us released.

12:03 And so we might think, really, two minutes, what's that going to do. But just that little moment of not only feeling that little bit better, but also giving you that sense of achievement that you've done something for you and that is so so powerful. So the key is to really, no matter how small of a thing that you do, to really acknowledge it, celebrate it. Say to yourself, good on you. You did that one push up against your wall next to your desk, Do a bit of a high five into the reflection of your computer or whatever it is. Celebrate the little small things because you're right we fall into the trap that we think, what's that going to do? And it doesn't count.

12:49 The whole It doesn't count thing, And it does. Yes, because you can do that little two minutes and often you'll keep on going. This morning of my little habit, I lift some weights because I want to get stronger. But the deal is all I have to do is just pick them up and do one bicep curl. That's it. And this morning I was looking at them and go, I do not want to do it, and you know I'm not doing it. I just don't feel like doing it. I said, no, no, the deal is just pick them up and do one biceck curl. So that's what I did, and I actually only did just five more and I put them down and I said, good on you for doing that, because you know what you're doing there. You're building momentum, and so tomorrow you did it today, so you've probably been more likely to do it tomorrow and the next day and the next.

13:33 Funny that you say that too, because as part of my like you know, having to get on the floor and stretch for my psiatica pain, I've got some hand weights downstairs as well, and so I was lying on the floor and doing my glute stretches, and I thought, I'll just grab those weights and just like do some chest press. There's nothing wrong with my upper body at the moment. And then that turned into, oh, I'll do some trycep overhead things. And it was only for a few minutes, but it's easy to dismisses that. But you're quite right, it all adds up. And I'm not going to go and enter a bodybuilding championship next week. But the effect on. My mood and just moving my body and all of those which you explain really well in the book, like all of those chemical responses that we have in our body.

14:19 And I think this is another kind of a mindset shift as well, isn't it, Lizzie. I think we have all been kind of conditioned that we do this exercise to get strong and or lose weight, and we need to remind ourselves that there is so much more benefit. There are so many more reasons for incorporating movement into our day. Let's talk about productivity, because you make a very good argument in the book that we are actually more effective, our brain is working better. Because so many people will say I don't have time for that because I'm too busy. I've got things to do. But actually making this time, building in these brakes can really boost productivity.

15:04 Can you explain that. There's a great study by Stanford University that shows it, compared to sitting, walking increases creative output by sixty percent. And those creative juices continue to flow after we have sat back down. So I think our what we tend to do is think, no, no, I've just got to sit here and power on through. That's just what I have to do. It's got to get this done. Whereas our brains are built to detect and respond to change, they love that when we give it a change, even if that is taking a micro break looking away from the screen for a moment. There's great studies by the Microsoft lad Arianna Huffington have done and that she talks about these micro breaks and how they help you to reset your stress and help you be more productive and happier.

15:51 And this is just a tiny little moment our brains, you think about it, they get so overloaded and this is so much in there. And when we get there's lovely chemicals like bead in their brain derived neurotropic factor. It is like fertilizer for our brain. Our brain rewards us from getting active. That's what we were evolved to do, and so it's such a trap that so many of us are in. We think we've got to power through to be more productive. And it reminds me of this Netflix show. I've been watching Drive to Survive, which is all about Formula one drivers. And if you think about a Formula one driver high performer, they are on that track and they just want to get to that finish line milli seconds count, and yet they are called to box box. They have to make their pit stop. They have to get off the track, they have to get the ties off, do the engine stuff whatever. It doesn't take very long and then they're back on the track.

16:47 But can you imagine when you were on that track, so focused, so wanting to get to the fish like, how annoying it must beat. I have to pull off and sometimes it takes longer than others. It's the exact same thing in our workday. We don't want to pull off. We just think, no, come on, just keep going. But our vehicle needs these little moments, our bodies, our brains need these moments, so we get back on track in a better way and we get to that finish line so that we're not crawling to that finish line, we're not burnt out, our tithes are completely run down. So think about in your day how you can take these little pit stops and how much more effective you're going to be from taking them.

17:28 Yeah, I think that's a great analogy, really useful analogy about how we have these like little reset recharge to basically come back and work at our optimal level to get actually the best performance out of ourselves. It's a great reframe. I love that. So somebody who is let's say somebody's sitting at the desk, they do office job, you know, kind of desk bound all day. What are some suggestions, Lizzie for how people can start incorporating some of these little micro breaks, these movement breaks into their day.

18:12 Okay, so in your day, think about something that you do on a regular basis. So maybe that's taking a siep of water, making a cup of tea at the kitchen bench. Maybe it's you're sending a lot of emails, you're taking a phone call, there's a particular meeting you do each day, And look at how you can use it as a queue to get yourself moving in some kind of way. So for example, if you take a sip of water, that can be your queue to have a little stand up and reach your arms up to the ceiling. Or before you get on a virtual meeting, turn your head from side to side, turn your body to look behind you like someone's calling you either side, to get your spine out of that saying stuck position.

18:54 If you go and make yourself a cup of tea and you flick that switch on the kettle, hands on the kitchen bench and do some push ups. Finding these little ways to make movement a habit can help remind you. And then of course at the end of that, to close the habit loop, we want to make sure we say to ourselves, yes, done that little celebrate. If you've got a little reward chart or something or a little thing you can tick it you've done your little movement for the day, then brilliant do that. And if that doesn't quite work for you and you need a bit of extra reinforcements, do something like setting an alarm on your phone if you're able to and have the phone away from you and so that you have to get on up to turn that time off. If you know you've got this hour or two hours ahead of you, take that little moment, get on up, shake it off, punch it out whatever you're feeling at the time, and then you can come back and get back into your work.

19:46 Even like a little walk on the spot or a jog on the spot is great. And if you've got moments that you do in your day that you're needing a say, a boost of confidence, or you're wanting some more creativity, some focus, whatever what is that you need, remember that movement, physical activity is there. It's waiting for you that in a pharmacy and us it's just waiting there and we can use it to think better, to work better. But we have to reimagine what the whole movement thing and physical activity thing has to look like for us to be able to do it in our workday, because you might be there thinking there is no way I'm going to be exercising at work. The super little subtle things that you can do in your chair, like imagine you've dropped a pen either side, lean down and pick up the pen like you're fixing up your shoe, rolled down, let your shoulders drop all these little moments really do start to add up, and you get to the end of your week and rather than being in pain in your body and just feeling it's like, oh gosh, I haven't got everything done I've wanted to get done.

20:45 We've used these little moments of movement, these micro moves to really help us be productive, perform better, and feel better at work. And even just getting to the end of the day and feeling less stressed and fatigued because we've built in those little recovery breaks as well mentally and physically, we've just broken up the day. I think it makes such a big difference when you do that. I love Lizzie that you've also got in the book things like breath breaks, you know, being the mindfulness teacher that I am and the psychologist and all about you know, mental health, you've actually incorporated it in your book and in this active workday kind of framework, this mental checkings and breathing breaks.

21:29 Can you talk about the benefit of those. Oh yes, well as you would know, okas, I mean, how incredible it is when we stop and take a few intentional breaths, and sometimes we do it and think, WHOA, I don't feel like I've done this all day. My breath has just been up here in my chest and my shoulders, and just even what that longer site out that exhalation can do, just feel like, oh, that moment of letting go hold so much in our bodies, and when we are there having to make a big decision or get something done, rather than thinking, Okay, I've just got to power through and I'm so stressed to go, go go. Use techniques like the military use this tactical breathing, this box breathing where you breathe in for the counter four.

22:23 It's like you're following a box. You breathe in for the counterfour. Is that line of the box goes up, hold that breath for the counterfour, across the top of the box, breathe out for the counterfour as that line goes down, and then close the box with a beautiful hold of that breath out for the counter four. It's such a powerful way to help reset stress and make us bring us a bit more back into the present moment. It's incredibly powerful, isn't it. You know all about this? Yeah? I do. And I think also this idea of kind of taking these purposeful pauses and you say, before you said, what do I need? Do I need more productivity? Do I need more creativity? And even asking yourself that question, and asking yourself in that moment, what do I need, forces you to stop and check in with yourself, to actually stop and just check in with your inner world and not just your body, but just your whole energy and your mood state, which I think is so profoundly important.

23:26 To then decide what do I do next? Like, what do I do with this next two minutes five minutes? It doesn't have to be a big amount of time, but we can become so consumed and fixated and just staring at our screen and working to a deadline and dealing with distractions, you know, all of that sort of stuff, and actually lose sight of or forget to actually just stop for a moment, check in what do I What do I need? What's what's the most important thing for me to do right now? And that in itself is just so powerful. How do I go from crappy to happy? How do I go from distracted to focus? How do I go from stress to calm? It's that little bit of action that we can take. But you're right, the first thing we need to do is go, Okay, where am I at?

24:20 Where do I want to be? And that's just like a second thought, Okay, what can I do? What can I tool can I grab from my toolbox to help me be in that state that I'm wanting to be in, rather than just pushing through like I know I do sometimes I'm sure most of us do. Yeah, I like the idea too of things like walking meetings. I know you're a big fan of meeting too, So how do you challenge meeting? And now what I like to do is say, hey, it's possible that we do this as a phone call instead. Start with that simple phone call, and that way I'm a bit more free to move around. Can we do this as a walk and talk? Or often I'll say I'm going to take this as a walk and talk, so I'm not even sort of asking them to do it, So I'm role modeling that that's a great thing to do.

25:12 And then the other great thing that you can look at meetings as and I've seen this really work for the organizations I work with, is to make our meetings movement meetings. And that can be a something as simple as at the start of the meeting someone says, Okay, we've probably been sitting down here for hours staring at our screen. Let's just take a little moment to look to one side and then look to the other side, because we know that that's going to help us reset our strets and give us our brains a chance for a little micro break. Or how about we just have a little stretch up of our arms, stand up if you want it. You can have your cameras off, cameras off, it doesn't matter. And then as you start to get a bit more used to that becomes a bit more of what you do on your meetings. I now have organizations that will start their meetings with, you know, playing a song and having a dance and playing one of my two minute moves. It just very much becomes a normal thing that they start doing. Meetings are such a great place to get a bit more active because you get to do it together and there might be some resistance, but very quickly that resistance turns to some smile, some laughter.

26:16 That energy is infectious, and then you get this lovely sense of connection with the people, either virtually or in person. Yeah. I really like that as well. And Lizzie, the last thing that I really wanted to ask you about because and I just want to point out that you've covered this so well in your book. Is how to create this active workplace? Not just an active workday for an individual, but how you kind of spread this idea of this active workday into a workplace and get everybody on board with this kind of culture. Really, So if somebody is, for example, say I'm a leader in an organization and I'm really on board with this idea, what are some things that I can do to try to share this message and get other people on board with the importance and the benefits of incorporating more movement into our day.

27:09 The first step is to role model it. Role modeling is so so powerful. Rather than telling something someone to do something, when you do it yourself and they see it, then that's often how you can help change someone else's behavior. So make sure that you are the person who is there just having a bit of a roll back of their shoulders, a few little stretches in your chair, and then telling someone how good that feels, and how you want to interrupt these long hours of sitting and why that you're doing it. Be sure to share the things that you are doing each time you reach into your toolkit, share resources with people as well, little ideas of how they can get moving more. Do this together on meetings if you can, and also as well make sure that people feel really comfortable doing it and that ignowledge that we're all really different. Some people love having that. If they're in an office and there's a little thing that goes off at three o'clock and all the office gets up and moving and dancing, some people love that, some people hate it. So acknowledging how we can make this accessible for everyone, And a really really important message in that is that just do a little something what works for you. Is it that sneaky little chair move that you do in your day, Is it just that little walk to you know, up and down your stairs or whatever.

28:34 It is just not going? Okay everyone, we're going to completely transform this culture. The idea is, okay, how can we start super small? Because what will happen, and what I see happen all the time is then it starts to spread and this little small little thing that you started doing, when the person next you starts doing, and the next and the next, how can we do this more? Maybe we could do this as a as a chair, whatever it is, but you don't want to go into gung ho with it. Start small, Start really simple, and let people know why you're doing it. It's not just this whole we're going to be exercising at work. We are going to use these little micro moves, these little moments to help us feel their stress, help us when we're feeling so much pressure, help us when our bodies are feeling achy. All the things that are particular to you and your work. This is our new tool. We're going to delve into the toolkit and use it.

29:32 I love it. I love it. I really actually love that at the moment there is this kind of movement for one of a better word, towards tiny, tiny actions that it doesn't have to be these big challenges and like you said, an hour at the gym, going for a run, Like we can actually just incorporate these tiny, very achievable changes to our day that can make a profound difference, not just do our physical health, mental health, mood, productivity, energy focus. There is so much benefit there to be gained and it doesn't have to be hard work. Yeah, and it's so great that there's so much research coming out about it. As well. If you're someone who loved the stats and the research, you can look up this idea of micro breaks, small moments of movement and you will see it's lots of It's in my book as well. You will be quite surprised how much research there is and just how effective it is. But here's the thing. When you are there not able to get yourself motivated, if you say to yourself, I'm just going to do this little thing. I'm just going to do two minutes. How much more achievable does that sound to yourself?

30:46 Then I'm going to do thirty or sixty. And if you can get yourself to do the thirty or sixty minutes, fantastic. We want to be getting that into our day. But when we can't get ourselves to do that, if we just say just do two minutes, ten seconds, just do one push up at the wall next to your desk, that action becomes a bit easier, and as we know, action proceeds motivation. We take that little bit of action, then the next bit of action can sometimes feel that a little bit easier, and the next one easier, and then we start to build that momentum where we are there in a situation where we are taking care of ourselves physically and mentally. We are putting on our oxygen masks before assisting others, just like my doctor told me I needed to do fifteen years ago.

31:35 Lizzie, your energy is so contagious. Thank you so much for being here today and sharing your message. I am at the end of my sitting period. I've got to get up and do some movement, so thank you so much. And congratulations on the book. Thank you, kas, Thank you for all you do for helping us all to go from crappy to happy. You're just awesome. Thank you, Thanks Lizzie. Lizzie's book is called The Active Workday Advantage and it's available now in all bookstores. If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with a friend, leave us a rating and review, Come and connect with me on Instagram or TikTok. Cast Done underscore XO. Hit that plus button to subscribe so that you never miss an episode, or come and join my mailing list. Cast Done dot Com is my website that's where you can sign up. As always, thank you for being here and I cannot wait to catch you next week for another episode of Crapy to Happy.