It's been a long and boring and somewhat lonely day at the office by myself with almost no work to do. But thankfully I perked up in the last hour or so.
Firstly because the building management sent round an email asking if anyone would be interested in a free yoga class they're thinking of arranging. Yes please! Very much so! I hope lots of people are interested and that it becomes a regular thing, I'd be happy to pay to attend. During the winter it's especially difficult to incorporate some decent movement into a day at the office. There's nowhere to go around here, we're on a business park next to Southampton Airport, there aren't even any nice outside spaces to go and sit at lunchtime, it's just concrete and a few shrubs on the corners. There's a nice little country park nearby, which I go to when the weather's alright, but it's still a 15-minute walk away along a busy main road. Over the last few months it's been harder to motivate myself to go outside and spend half of my break walking alongside a busy road when all you can see outside the office window is cold (and often wet) greyness. I know I could do something when I get home, but because I don't have that habit it just doesn't occur to me. I don't think of it so I can't start trying to build up a habit. I'd love there to be a regular yoga class in the office, even if it's just once a month.
Following that email, I opened up Spotify and put on my Feelgood playlist. Music doesn't always help me feel better, but I started by selecting a song with a good beat that I could do a little workout to - just marching on the spot, mini lunges, starjumps, and boxing-punches, really, a few minutes of that is better than nothing. (Edit: I've just realised I was basically doing aerobics, haha.) Exercise releases the happy brain chemicals so of course it made me feel better and I carried on, my muscles grateful to be moving in something more energetic than a walk. I did a bit of exercise-dancing and a bit of sit-dancing in my chair, and lots of singing along under my breath, haha. I've created another playlist of songs particularly for doing this, so will do it more often, at the office and at home. It's fun and very much needed. Even just dancing along to a single song a few times a day is better than nothing. In case you're curious, although I doubt anyone really is, here's what I listened/danced to before going home:
- Does Your Mother Know - Abba
- Marvellous - The Lightning Seeds
- Loser Like Me - Glee Cast
- Black Suits Comin' - Will Smith (from Men In Black 2)
- Wake Me Up - Wham
- Everybody Needs Somebody - The Blues Brothers
- Take A Chance On Me - Abba
- Doctor Jones - Aqua
- Invisible Touch - Genesis
- Lovelife - Take That
- Hot Hot Hot - Arrow
- One Foot - Walk The Line
- Friend Like Me - Will Smith (from Aladdin)
- Fev Del Av Garden - Movitz!
- Warriors - Too Many Zooz
- When I Kissed the Teacher - Lily James etc. (from Mamma Mia 2)
- The Safety Dance - Men Without Hats
I'm sure this hasn't been the most interesting post, particularly as it's my first one in two months, but it's something, and better than nothing, haha. So. Thanks for reading, and if any of you have some favourite upbeat songs you like to dance around the room to, I'd love to hear what they are :)
Edit: A few good things on Friday too:
- Discovering the music of Aurora
- A message from someone who's just read the post I published about my Asperger's, saying it provided some validation, comfort, and help for them :)
- A catch-up and dog walk with a friend I've barely seen over the last few months
- Looking forward to spending this evening at a Norse mythology storytelling thing, and a busy and sociable weekend seeing family, going to a friend's party, and returning to Sunday Assembly