Don’t Let Autumn Steal Your Movement
There’s a point in September when you suddenly notice the evenings have changed.
You finish whatever you’re doing, look outside and think, Blimey, it’s getting dark early now.
That change can quietly alter our habits. The evening walk becomes less tempting. Time outdoors gets squeezed. We sit down earlier and, before long, the sofa has recruited us for the winter.
This week’s World Physiotherapy Day messaging offered a useful reminder. The 2026 theme focused on physical activity in preventing and managing cardiovascular disease and stroke, with physiotherapists again encouraging people to stay active and break up long periods of sitting.
For me, that fits perfectly into the physical part of the Wellness Wheel. Movement doesn’t have to mean exercise.
A ten-minute brisk walk counts. Pottering around outside counts as movement. Stretching while the kettle boils is better than remaining planted in a chair. A few gentle squats, some mobility work or a short bit of yoga at home all keep the body doing what it was designed to do: move.
The National Health Service recommends adults aim for at least 150 minutes of moderate activity each week, while also reducing long periods spent sitting. Importantly, it doesn’t all need doing in one heroic burst. A brisk ten-minute walk contributes towards that weekly total.
NHS guidance on getting active
That makes autumn a good time to change the plan rather than abandon it.
If the weather is decent, grab the daylight when it appears. Walk at lunchtime rather than waiting for the evening. If rain is hammering against the windows, put some music on and move indoors for ten minutes. Stretch your shoulders, loosen your hips, work gently through your back and legs. You don’t need Lycra, equipment or a fitness subscription.
And, naturally, you don’t necessarily need clothes either.
That is where our naturism carries comfortably into autumn. Naturism is how we live; it doesn’t hibernate simply because standing naked in a Welsh garden during a November downpour would be a fairly questionable wellbeing strategy.
At home, being skyclad can still accompany stretching, yoga, meditation or simply moving comfortably around our own space. The benefit of the movement comes from the movement itself — I’m not suggesting nudity magically improves your cardiovascular fitness — but naturism can remain part of the ordinary routine in which we look after ourselves.
There’s another useful bonus. Regular physical activity can support mood and sleep as well as physical health, and the NHS specifically recommends getting active as one of the habits that can help people sleep better.
So my autumn challenge is deliberately modest: find ten minutes today that would otherwise have been spent sitting down and move instead.
No targets to smash. No guilt. No transformation photographs.
Just ten minutes.
Because looking after ourselves through autumn isn’t necessarily about doing something dramatic. Quite often, it’s about refusing to let a good summer habit quietly disappear when the nights begin drawing in.
Where could you find your ten minutes of movement today?
