My dear friends, for me exercise is something which I have started enjoying very recently. Do you know why? Because I have understood its real importance only during this tough time of pandemic. Till March 2020, I, and I think we all, lived a very disciplined life. Getting up early in the morning, getting ready for school, doing meditation, studying for some time, and then going to school. In school, we used to do many activities like, listening to different teachers, playing with our friends, participating in sports, and other events. Finally, coming back home, getting ready for extra-curricular activities, studying, and then having a sound sleep for 8 hours. (don’t know ‘bout you guys but this was my favourite part, I mean who doesn’t like sleeping after long tiring days?)

Unknowingly we were doing so many exercises and we were enjoying it. We were indeed celebrating it every day. In that time our mind and our body were very synchronised. We have been doing these things for the past 12-13 years. But since the pandemic has occurred, things started changing. Everything went for a toss because of COVID -19.

During the lockdown, I started waking up late, I started spending more time on social media, started eating haphazardly, not stepping outside, not playing or engaging in any physical work and this continued for almost two to three months. In the end what was the result? I started putting on weight, my body and mind started becoming idle and even started losing interest in my school classes because my mind was not active as my body was lazy.

Upon observing, my mom explained to me the importance of exercising and asked me to exercise at least one hour daily. She started forcing me to do it. But believe me I hated doing exercise. It was like a punishment for me. I exercised for two to three days and after that made some excuses so that I could skip my exercise. I continued this for almost one month. I was becoming slow in all the activities, getting irritated at small things.

Then one day while I was going through my Instagram, I saw how a man lost his weight and that moved me. I too, wanted to change my way. I wanted to become the ‘before me’.

I motivated myself to exercise for one hour every day. From then, I started noticing a change in myself. I started feeling light, I started feeling better, lively, positive. My body was back in shape. Slowly my mind also became active because a healthy mind is always found in a healthy body. It was all because of exercising. This really made me understand the importance of exercising.

Today I feel myself lucky as I am healthy because I started celebrating exercise and loved to do it again. I will be luckier in the future if I celebrate and enjoy different forms of exercises.

So, what I would like to say is that there are so many different types of exercises like swimming, jogging, dancing, yoga, aerobics, etc. Try to inculcate at least one form of it in your daily life and see how your mind, how your heart and how your entire body smiles.

Let’s stay fit and keep India fit too.