By Mina Samuels, Author of Run Like A Girl: How Strong Women Make Happy Lives
1. Happiness for All. Let’s face it. Children are stressful. So what a mother needs is the ultimate anti-stress elixir — to move the blood around in the body and release a juicy flow of endorphins. Less stress = happier mother. Happier mother = happier children. The answer is in the math.
2. Me First. . .at least sometimes. No workout happens without making time. And that requires a mother to prioritize her own needs, which, guess what, is a win-win for mother and child. Why? — because it demonstrates to daughters and, as importantly, sons, the importance of women’s needs and pursuits.
3. Girl Time. Motherhood can be lonely. How wonderful then that working out can double as social time, an opportunity to catch up with a girlfriend. There’s nothing like sweat and a chat to put a glow in the day.
4. Walking the Walk. The best way to model a life for our children is to live and breathe it. Do you want your children to be healthy and active? Well then. . .I don’t need to tell you what that means.
5. Feeling Groovy. Ah, youth. . .to be young again. Sigh. People say children keep us young, but you know that the opposite is as apt to be true, as you struggle out of bed after a sleepless night, or bite off a chunk of your tongue in an effort not to yell about the four hundred and fifty-second incident of peanut butter finger painting on the kitchen cupboards. What keeps a mother young is having her own playtime. And that’s what sport is, after all, playing. So it was when we were children, so it should be when we are grown.
Copyright © 2011 Mina Samuels, author of Run Like A Girl: How Strong Women Make Happy Lives
Mina Samuels, author of Run Like A Girl: How Strong Women Make Happy Lives is a freelance writer and editor, and in a previous incarnation, a litigation lawyer and human rights advocate. In addition to many ghostwriting projects, her previous books include a novel, The Queen of Cups, and The Think Big Manifesto, coauthored with Michael Port. When she is not writing she might be off doing triathlons, marathons, biking, cross-country skiing, yoga, rock climbing, kayaking, snowshoeing, or hiking in far off places.
For more information please visit http://www.minasamuels.com/ and follow the author on Facebook and Twitter
Photo credit © Suprijono Suharjoto | Dreamstime.com
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