Now that most of the leaves have fallen and the landscape is colorless, I feel less inclined to spend time outdoors. For the past several weeks, maybe a month and a half at the most, I’ve been getting up super early. Often at 05:00 a.m. But instead of stumbling off to Kockum Fritid, our local gym to lift weights for an hour or going for a 10k run, as I’ve been doing for a few years, I instead put myself through a 30 minutes hybridized routine based on my rudimentary knowledge of Yoga and Qi Gong. Do I break a sweat? Barely. But it’s definitely strenuous and irrefutably gets my sleepy body warmed up.

Mentally, I now enjoy the exact same euphoric state of mind as if I’d been jogging or pumping iron, sans the pains and aches those routines consequentially have as by-products.

At Kockum Fritid, I regularly attend Yoga classes and once a week, I have a private teacher at HTA for my Qi Gong training. The more knowledgeable I get about low-impact exercise, the more comfortable I feel about applying what I learn to my morning exercise regimen.

As hard as it at times is to get my relatively stiff body to bend and twist that the movements, poses and stances demand, the learning experience is absolutely terrific. Mentally, I can’t think of a better way to kickstart the day right now. And I’m certainly improving my physical elasticity – although the progress is incontrovertibly incremental. But that’s to be expected.