0:00 When you're not working and when you're not studying, what do you actually do? If the answer is doom scrolling, then this video is for you because today we're going to talk in English about five hobbies that you should do every day or every week to improve yourself and to feel happier overall. Hi guys, welcome back to my channel. In this podcast, we're going to talk in natural English. This is the pace that I would speak with another native speaker so that you can become more used to hearing natural conversational English. We've spoken about hobbies before, but today I really want to go into detail about the
0:45 five areas, the five main hobbies that you should try to implement into your life because it will be greatly beneficial. I promise. So with that being said, let's start with the first one. And this hobby is going to be something physical. Something like a sport or walking or hiking, something that you can do for your physical health. I have never been much of a jogger or a runner. Even in the gym, I honestly find it quite boring to go on a treadmill. After like 20 minutes or 30 minutes, I get bored. But alternatively, you can go for walks. This is something I do. And honestly, in the beginning, it was difficult, especially to try and do
1:30 like 20,000 steps or 10,000 steps, I think, is what they say you should do now. That was difficult for me in the beginning, but now I actually really like it. It's something that I do every day. So, for example, today, like I went to the supermarket this morning, that's 5,000 steps. And this evening I'll go for a little walk before bed just because it feels good and it helps me to digest my food as well, especially after dinner. One little bonus tip for this as well. If you do want to include English learning into your hobbies, then for walking or for going on the treadmill, if you like the treadmill, then what you can do is you can listen to a podcast in English at the same time. This is great
2:16 comprehensible input. For example, a video like this, just a short video uh while you're walking, while you're being physically active. You can also listen to something in English. It's good because it will regulate your body weight. It will release endorphins. It will reduce your bloat. It's good for all kinds of things, for heart disease, for your muscles. So, obviously, it's good to be physically active. And if you are not keen on sports like I am, then I do think that even walking is a good thing that you should implement into your everyday life. The second hobby I want to talk about is the creative hobby. This can be anything from painting to making music, uh from
3:03 journaling to cooking, something that engages the creative part of your mind. I think that this part of our brain is so neglected. As soon as we become adults, we lose the imagination that we have and that was encouraged in us when we were children. It's difficult now, I think, to find hobbies, to find time for hobbies in general, but especially for creative ones because we still need to use our brain. We're not resting if we do something like like cooking. Although cooking can be therapeutic, it can also be very stressful. And uh although painting can be calming, sometimes it can also be frustrating when it doesn't turn out the way you want it to. So it's
3:49 still very active. It still engages our brain. And in my opinion, because we work so much, most people work 9 to5, 5 days a week, we don't have a lot of time um in which we want to continue to engage our brain, if that makes sense. Most people want to relax. They want to do something more calming, which is important. I'll come to that later. But creative hobbies are important because like I said, once we grow up, once we are no longer children, we neglect this part of ourselves, this part of our brain. So I think that it's paramount to continue using it, continue developing our imagination when we're adults
4:34 because otherwise it is something you'll lose. Again, if you want to try and incorporate some English learning into this hobby, one way you can do that is, for example, with journaling or creative writing, obviously, maybe write some sentences in English instead of your your mother tongue. Maybe write some poetry in English or challenge yourself to write some poetry in English. If the creative hobby is cooking, maybe follow a recipe in English. Or if you like to write music, uh, write the lyrics in English, try to find these little upgrades where you would naturally use your mother language, your mother tongue, and instead replace it with English. Because it's these little
5:21 everyday moments where we use English that really make it stick with us because we're switching we're switching, right, our settings from our automatic uh, mother tongue to English. And this is what's going to make English stick. Then for number three, like I mentioned, is actually a calming hobby. Something that is going to regulate our nervous system, something that is going to help us relax and remain tranquil. For this, I think the most popular hobbies are things like meditation, mindfulness. My mom loves to garden. She's always been a really avid gardener. Uh she says that this is because she feels like it makes her relax because she's connecting
6:08 with the outside world. She has all this fresh air in a way. You know, she's connecting with nature. She's connecting with the natural earth. And maybe there's something really grounding in that. I don't know. I've personally never been very interested in gardening, but I do see the appeal, especially when you're growing plants. When you create something yourself, you have this tiny seed from the beginning and you because of your time, your effort, your care, your nurture, you create something beautiful like some flowers from this tiny seed for example. And so I think there's something very rewarding in that. But that whole process of I guess birth to death is very natural and very grounding. With things like meditation,
6:55 sometimes it can be really difficult to find the time to meditate. I think some people see it as uh a waste of time or or not necessarily a waste of time, but there's so many other things to do in the day that to dedicate 20 minutes of time to meditating to basically just sitting there and doing nothing. I know that's an oversimplification, but in any case, to sit for 20 minutes and not be productive, you know, not worry about anyone else, not worry about work. Sometimes it's hard to justify that. However, with that being said, it is so important to make time for ourselves, for our um emotional, spiritual health
7:41 so that we can continue to be healthy, continue to be productive. For me, sometimes what's calming is journaling to just write down about my day. Whatever works for you, whatever helps you to process your thoughts of the day to get everything, all of the emotions, positive or negative, outside of you so that you can calm down. Absolutely do it. It's essential to have in your life. The fourth hobby I want to talk about is a hobby that lets you grow, something that will help your personal development. This is more like a skill that you're going to hone. So, the obvious one I want to talk about is learning a new language. I've always said I think this is not only an important skill to have, but actually a
8:28 very rewarding skill to have as well because it's so gratifying to travel and connect with other people. It's so rewarding to be able to read something in another language. It makes you feel proud of yourself. It makes you feel intelligent because you are you speak another language. As much as I believe that hobbies should be something you do for yourself, I do think with this hobby in particular, learning a skill, the other benefit is it's going to help you with your work. You'll have another skill for your CV, something that you can talk about in a professional setting as well as a personal one. So, I do think it's important to have some kind of personal skill that isn't a degree
9:14 that is uniquely yours. So, for me, mine is language learning. Uh, I've always enjoyed this and yeah, I have to say it's something that comes up a lot if I have a job interview. They'll ask me questions about this and it's a talking point. I can use this to yeah talk about the language but also the dedication that I've put into this how much I've grown as a person because of the goals I've set myself and what I've achieved. Other useful skills now I think the elephant in the room is coding. AI has exploded in recent years and so coding I think will probably become more prestigious and more crucial in the future. So this could be a good skill if you would like to develop something like
10:00 this. In general, studying anything, studying any kind of subject, any any theme is going to help your personal development as well because you're deepening your knowledge. You're expanding your world view. You're becoming more clever and there's nothing wrong with that. That's always a bonus in my opinion. Also reading. I remember when I was a child, all of my friends used to read in school. I used to read. I remember staying up till like 3:00 in the morning reading the Harry Potter books. There's more of a fascination with audio books and podcasts these days, which I completely understand because it's convenient. You can exercise, you can cook at the same time as um hearing a story, but reading
10:47 requires so much brain power. And I think there's more focus and more concentration when you're seeing the pages and reading it to yourself. This is what helped to expand my vocabulary so much. If you want to improve your English, then obviously read in English and you will expand your vocabulary. I think this is a great hobby and a great way to learn a language in general. The final thing I will say about reading is I think it's a much more natural way to unwind before we go to bed. There's definitely a tendency these days to doom scroll, to go on our phones and go through reals before we go to sleep. And this cannot be good. This cannot be good for our health. It can't be good for our eyesight, for our mental health. I do
11:34 think that reading is a better way to de-stress, to make ourselves feel sleepy. So overall, it's probably a healthier alternative to using our phones in any case. And the fifth hobby I want to talk about is a hobby that involves connection. A social hobby where we speak with new people or we make friends. Nowadays, because we have technology, it's so easy to isolate ourselves, to stay between the same four walls of our house, to not go out. Maybe if we want to speak to someone, we just FaceTime them. But FaceTime is not the same as in-person contact. You're missing the physical closeness, you're missing the eye contact and the deeper
12:21 connection that you can have with somebody when you're face to face. In my humble opinion, in the future, as remote work becomes more common or more routine, I do believe it will become harder to have interactions every single day. Life looks like it's becoming more convenient for us to just stay indoors, to just stay in our own areas. I live in a big city and it's difficult to meet people even though there's so many people. You maybe run into someone and then you find out you live in completely different sides of the city. Or maybe you Okay. Or maybe it's just that everyone's kind of in their own bubble, their own little circle. So it can be harder to
13:06 break the circle. Maybe because of social embarrassment. Maybe we find it shameful to speak to strangers these days. For this reason, it's important to have some kind of hobby where you can have interactions with people. This can be anything. Maybe if you like your reading, you should join a book club and then you can discuss your thoughts and opinions about something you're passionate with with a group of like-minded people. If you like learning languages, maybe you can join a speaking club and connect with people and start to practice speaking and using that language in a natural setting. Maybe you're not a fan of sports. However, playing sports on a team is obviously going to be an amazing way to meet and connect with new people. So, it
13:52 might be something worth considering as well, cuz then you have the benefit of doing physical activity for your body and your physical health and something social which lets you feel more at peace, which improves your emotional well-being because you're connecting with other human beings. Another idea that revolves around communication and connection is travel. I am a massive advocate for travel. I have changed so much as a person thanks to my experiences traveling. I don't know anyone that has not changed through the experiences they've had. Traveling is such an amazing way to discover more about yourself, but also in this case to connect with other people, to meet so many people from so many different
14:37 backgrounds that it will expand your world view. There's really no downside in my opinion. Ultimately, these are just my thoughts and opinions. It's still difficult, admittedly, to find the time to have not just one hobby, but five hobbies. I don't know if it's realistic to do all of them. Maybe you'll have to juggle between them. Maybe for a few months you can try and focus on having a connecting hobby where you go to a club. Maybe then you want to have some more time to do something creative. Whatever your routine is, you should try to find some time, even if it's on the scale of a whole year to do all five of these because it will help you to change and develop so much as a person to really achieve your full
15:23 potential. And of course, you can incorporate some English learning into this in a way that will be more fun and more dynamic than just studying from a textbook. If you've watched this video all the way to the end, thank you so much. I really, really appreciate it. Um, I love making this content and I love reading your comments. I would love to make some more videos with natural English where we just talk about topics that will come up every day like hobbies or work or health. So, if you have any ideas, if there's anything you would like me to talk about as a podcast, then please let me know in the comments and I will do my best to make some more engaging, interesting videos for you to listen to. Thank you so much. Goodbye.
