FROM COUCH POTATO TO LIVE WIRE!

MY jouRneY oF BecoMing less stRessed, BY BecoMing MoRe active

Laziness, we all experience it in some type of way. Well, sometimes I feel like it’s especially me though. My roommates often like to call me grandma because I’m the type of person that likes to lounge around when I don’t really have anything to do (I also do this when I have lots of things to do but that’s beside the point). Knowing this about myself I never really had the motivation to change it, because that’s just the kind of person I am right? Well, not really, because I remember being little and spending my days playing outside or doing different sports. Thinking back to that time in my life made me realize that I don’t really want to be inactive, it’s just that I never made work of actually trying to find new ways to exercise. So, why not try out various types of activities to help get me more energized and motivated?

sWiMMing at sonsBeeck

When I think about my childhood, one of my favorite sports to do was swimming. Although back then, swimming meant me and my best friend hitting each other with pool noodles, going on water slides and seeing how long I could hold my breath underwater. This time around, I decided to actually try to use it as an exercise. So, I bought a €6,80 ticket for Sonsbeeck Swimming pool (which is a 10-minute bike ride away from BUas, by the way) and went there for about an hour. When I tell you that within 5 minutes of me being there, I already had a problem with the lockers, I’m

EXERCISE YOUR BODY TO MOTIVATE YOUR MIND!

not even kidding. Thankfully the staff were really nice and helped me out right away. At first, undressing and being in my bathing suit with a bunch of strangers took some getting used to, but luckily, I was able to get over that pretty quickly. After this little struggle, it was time to actually get in the pool and start swimming. For some reason, I expected the water to be very cold but getting in it was kind of warm-ish (which was both nice and a little unsettling, because what made the pool so warm…). After 5 minutes I was already very winded, which I didn’t expect because how tiring could it be to swim a few lanes right? Well, apparently very tiring. For the rest of the hour, I tried to keep up the pace, take a few breaks here and there, and overall, just enjoy the water. It was nice to focus more on the physicality of it because I’m usually more focused on my thoughts. It really felt like I took a break from stressing about school, which was kind of unexpected.