With the gyms closed owing to the Novel Corona Virus we need to come up with different ways of exercising and passing the time.

Yesterday, after a few rainy days it was sunny again in Southern California. I was wondering how to pass the time while keeping fit and I noticed that a slope at the back of our yard had many weeds. I decided to weed as a fitness exercise.

The way I did it was to pick one or two weeds and walk to a garbage bin top that I had placed at the other end of the yard. I was being as inefficient as possible by walking around the pool before returning. I weeded and walked for 79 minutes according to my fitness monitor and burned 422 calories.

There are plenty of weeds left in the front yard and I’ll tackle them tomorrow morning before it gets too hot. I know many people don’t have a yard but there are other chores which you don’t like doing, say washing dishes that now you can do as an exercise.

The important thing here is that your intention makes a task as boring and dreadful or wonderful and something to look forward to.

Which leads me to the main point of this post and that is to weed your mind. That is to say get rid of negative thoughts.

One of the ways I do that is through meditation Actually I treated the weeding yesterday as a meditation and was enjoying the sunshine and clear sky.

Another way is through self hypnosis and guided meditation.

Just smiling for absolutely no reason increases the amount of endorphins in one’s brain and makes one happier so is another way of deweeding your mind.

And to go back to where we started exercise definitely improves mental health as well as physical health.