There is a writer’s joke that goes like this: I didn’t have time to write it short, so I wrote it long. Writing is a process of refining what you want to say, and cutting out the excess. This often takes many revisions.

In the same way, exercising quickly is far less demanding than if you do it slowly.  Counter intuitive? Possibly.

To slow down is lose momentum. And it can take a while to find a slower rhythm.  Meditative practitioners know that it takes time for the mind to calm down. You can’t meditate quickly. Studies have shown that meditators tend to be calmer.

Slowed down exercises allows the organism time to differentiate new and more graceful patterns of movement.  Our brains map a personal area around the body known as peripersonal space. When we exercise, we stimulate proprioceptors which are nerve cells that measure stretch and body position, and so we create new neural pathways.  Regular practice of these exercises, or any meditative practice, changes the brain over time.

The rest of this sequence is on YouTube.

Particularly for us older adults (your writer is 60) balance and flexibility matter. The law of biological atrophy is unrelenting.  In other words, use it or lose it.  The body is more than transport to get your head to meetings.  This sequence of eighteen slow movements has been my daily practice for the past twelve years.  Am I just lucky I don’t suffer the aches and pains of others my age, or does this practice have something to do with it?

An investment of twenty minutes a day can be rewarding.

Time magazine recently cited new studies by H.R. consultants and the National Business Group on Health. No consultant would be happy without showing numbers because measuring things is what they do. The upshot is large companies are spending money, or planning to spend money, on encouraging employees to stay, or get, healthy. The usual suspects are targeted: diet and exercise.  This is good, but what’s missing?

Answer: sleep and rest.

In kindergarten children have a nap after lunch. Why not workers? I work in a culture of one. I embrace the afternoon nap. If ever there was a productivity method, it’s napping when you’re tired. It’s rejuvenating and refreshing. When the serotonin levels dip after lunch that’s a signal for brain to rest. And if you’re tired you’re going to make mistakes.

This is a no-cost workplace-wellness practice. Of course, it’s counter-cultural. Even the siesta in Spain has been losing its appeal in a misplaced effort at workforce productivity. Why can’t the likes of Towers Perrin and Watson Wyatt try to study companies where employees are encouraged to take a nap?

You don’t think there are any? Just try asking Arshad Chowdhury, co-founder of MetroNaps.

When I asked him about the difficulty of getting people to take a nap at work, he said that it was matter of culture. But even large rule-bound companies are making headway. At the time I interviewed Chowdhury, employees at Proctor & Gamble Services in Germany had embraced power napping.

MetroNaps sells a futuristic chair which appeals to office culture. However, employers don’t need to spend huge amounts on employee wellness.  I know this is a heretical statement. They could do well by allocating a rest area and encouraging people to recharge.

We tend to think that everything is solved by technology when just doing something different can work better. Remember how much NASA spent developing a pen that would write upside down in zero gravity? The Russians solved the problem of zero gravity by writing with a pencil.  You don’t always need rocket science.