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5 Easy Exercises to Do When All You Feel Like Doing is Laying Down (While You’re Lying Down)
Exercise can be a great way to help manage your mood and make the prospect of getting out of the bed feel a little less impossible. Even a small amount of movement done regularly enough for long enough can make an improvement in symptoms of depression, anxiety, and the general blahs and make the world outside of your bed seem a little less awful.
The problem is that most forms of exercise require you to get out of bed to do them.
When I started working on my forthcoming book Work It Out: A Mood-Boosting Exercise Guide for People Who Just Want to Lie Down, I knew that I wanted to include suggestions for moves and workouts that bypassed that step. As a former personal trainer, I had the knowledge to take moves performed in more traditional settings and tweak them for use in beds and on floors. And as a depressed person, I’d spent plenty of time testing out my ideas for myself while I was flailing around in the pits of despair. This was my chance to share what I’d learned with other people who might be struggling. (And maybe it gave my self-loathing, catastrophizing brain a little boost to know that all of those hours I spent grumbling my way through my little depressercize routines had mattered after all.)
Here are five of my favorite exercises you can do while lying down that made the cut.
Posted by Sarah Kurchak
Quirk Books To Help With Your New Year’s Resolutions
Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash
Resolutions are a complicated subject. Some people swear by them, some people swear off them, and most people swear they are going to keep to theirs, and then forget about it by the time the snow melts! Whichever camp you fall into, making New Year’s Resolutions can be a fun way to focus on something positive to bring into your life in the new year, even if it’s just for January. From a decision to take better care of your health and your home, to getting more sleep or shopping less, we have a Quirk book for every resolution—unless your resolution is to buy fewer books!
I Resolve to Get Fit: Work It Out by Sarah Kurchak (on sale April 18, 2023)
Resolutions to work out more, get fit, or hit the gym are some of the most common, but it can be hard to head out in the cold of winter to exercise. That’s why Work It Out is ideal, as it will help you get healthy without even having to get out of bed! Author Sarah Kurchak is an autistic personal trainer, who understands that 45 minutes at a gym isn’t accessible (or reasonable) for everyone, and so Work It Out focuses on ways to incorporate movement and develop new habits in a unique way. Realistic, accessible, and practical, this is the ideal book to make sure that anyone can improve their physical and mental health through movement—without hustling at the gym for hours.
I Resolve to Buy Less (And Still Look Great): New to You by Melody Fortier
Fast fashion is increasingly recognized as a problematic way to stay stylish, so if your resolution is to buy less, New to You is an ideal guide to making what you already have (or what someone else has had before you) work. Subtitled How to Buy, Fix, and Keep Secondhand Clothing, New To You covers every step from buying vintage and second hand (and making sure you get the good stuff) to fixing, maintaining, and storing items so that they will last. Fast fashion isn’t the only way to a stylish wardrobe, and this book will help create one that is truly unique, and will last a lifetime.
I Resolve to Be More Organized: This Modern House by Jennifer McKnight Trontz
Keeping on top of things around the house doesn’t come naturally to most, and that is why everyone needs a copy of This Modern House. Drawing from vintage housekeeping and modern, practical advice, this book includes everything adults need to know about budgeting, food shopping (and avoiding food waste), cleaning, entertaining, and more. Decorating tips, how to sew on buttons, and even how to host a dinner party (and plan it well) come together to help anyone who wants to be one of the people who Have Their Life Together. Vintage aprons not required.
I Resolve to Get More Sleep: Good Night by Julia Blohberger and Roos Neeter (on sale March 21, 2023)
Everyone knows that a good night’s sleep is almost magic—it helps with physical and mental health, focus, fitness, and so much more—but it’s not always easy to break the cycle and start getting a good night’s sleep. That’s where Good Night: Your Holistic Guide to the Best Sleep of Your Life comes in. Written by yoga teachers and Ayurveda health and lifestyle advisors, Good Night looks at all the parts of our lives that affect the quality of sleep we get, and provide advice and tips on how to get the best sleep you can, starting from wherever you are, even if that’s only a few hours a night.
I Resolve to Drink Less Alcohol: Stuff Every Tea Lover Should Know and Stuff Every Coffee Lover Should Know by Candace Rose Rardon
By the end of the festive season, with feasts and parties, is it any surprise that a lot of people resolve to cut back on the booze or even cut it out completely? Dry January is increasingly popular, but it can be a struggle to figure out what to replace it with, which is why Stuff Every Tea Drinker Should Know and Stuff Every Coffee Drinker Should Know are great ways to get into a healthier way to sip. These books will take any reader from novice to aficionado on coffee and tea, a perfect journey to take if alcohol is off the menu this year.
Explore Stuff Every Tea Lover Should Know Explore Stuff Every Coffee Lover Should Know
What books are you reading to support your resolutions? Tweet @quirkbooks and let us know!
Posted by Rose Moore
Holiday Gift Guide 2022: Stocking Stuffers
Okay, so your shopping is almost done, but now it’s down to the stocking stuffers. We recommend these great reads!
Posted by Quirk Books Staff
Holiday Gift Guide 2022: Lifestyle and Wellness
These lifestyle and wellness books are beautifully designed with great self-care tips and friendly, accessible advice. Happy shopping!
Posted by Quirk Books Staff
Work It Out
An encouraging fitness book that meets you where you are—even if you’re lying on the floor.
Exercise is the most reliable way to improve mental health. But if you’re depressed, anxious, burned out, or struggling, it may feel impossible to get started, get serious, or even get up.
Written by an autistic personal trainer, Work It Out busts myths about fitness while providing clear, actionable advice on how to:
- Incorporate exercise into your daily life
- Build an adjustable workout plan for both good and bad mental health days
- Shake off the messages that say you’re never doing enough
- Set up a workout log that motivates you in exactly the way you need
- Celebrate all your achievements, including getting out of bed
- But also get a little exercise in bed, if that’s where you are today
Frank, funny, and sympathetic, Work It Out offers realistic tips, encouragement, and dozens of activity ideas for times when exercise is the only thing that will help—and the last thing you want to do.
Posted by Kim Ismael
Goblin Mode
Embrace your inner goblin! Learn to decorate, dress, craft, forage, and live according to the goblin principles of community, diversity, proud weirdness, and joyful mess.
Do you ever feel strange, gross, chaotic, underappreciated, or like you don’t quite fit in? Great news: you might be a goblin! That means your imperfections and idiosyncrasies are the most awesome things about you, and you can build a more balanced, comfortable, harmonious life by accepting and honoring them—taking inspiration from the frogs, fungus, moss, rocks, and dirt that goblins love.
Can a mushroom give you fashion tips? Can a snail teach you to be a better person? You bet they can—and in this book you’ll also learn to:
- Build a moss garden for your lair
- Grow and use medicinal plants
- Forage for berries (even in the city)
- Mend your cozy sweaters
- Display your cool rock collection
- And more!
Anyone can be a goblin, and Goblin Mode includes life advice for celebrating physical and mental diversity, rejecting prejudice, and generally hanging on to a little joy.
Featuring 25 whimsical illustrations by Marian Churchland, Goblin Mode will help you rethink your relationship with your body, your home, your community, and the earth.
Posted by Kim Ismael
