15 Things To Do Between Taking Asthma Medication & Exercising

I am not one of those people who hates unproductive time. I have just spent the last 3 hours of this fine (rainy) Sunday morning watching Try Guys videos, and I am happy with this life choice.

But the wait time between pre-medicating and exercise is the worst

The exception to my enjoying-unproductive-time ways is the fifteen minutes between when I take my inhaler to pre-medicate for exercise, and the time at which it is advisable to start doing said exercise. I’ve already worked up the motivation to do exercise, but now I have to wait to do it?!

If you, like me, are annoyed by this random 15-minute span of idle time, here are some things you can probably quite nicely fill those 15 minutes with (but won’t take long enough you’ll never actually go work out OR you won’t actually want to keep doing them). If you have a hard time keeping activities to just 15 minutes, try this convenient timer hack I recently wrote about.

Things to do after taking your asthma medicine and before exercising*:

*Most of these activities are more suited to home workouts, but I mean, you do you.

1. Watch a Try Guys video

   Most of them are between 11 and 15 minutes, and this is 100% informed by how much time I have spent enjoying this experience lately. Here’s a starter. (Technically, you can watch any video of the desired length?)

2. Prepare cookies

   The key to these very easy cake mix cookies being extra awesome is chilling the dough. I know, everyone skips that part. I don’t get the science of it but I do follow this instruction for a very tasty, fairly puffy, ridiculously easy cookie. So prepare them and let the dough chill while you work out. Then you have cookies to eat later.

3. Clean something

   I mean, I never personally do this in this span of time (well, maybe I’ve swept the floor), but you could! And if you’re me, you won’t likely want to keep avoiding exercising to clean. A clean house is a healthy asthma patient!

4. Create something

   Why yes, I am writing this blog post while waiting for my medicine to kick in, and I’ve started many others during this waiting period as well. So, start writing, practice an instrument you haven’t played in a while, or draw something.

5. Have a phone call.

   Make one or three of those short phone calls you’ve been putting off (Or, sometimes Dia and I just end up on the phone. Whatever.)

6. Refine that workout playlist

   You know those songs you always mean to add, or the ones you always mean to axe but don’t want to mid-workout? You’ve got time right now! (So long as you don’t get distracted doing so for hours like I would.)

7. Get ready

   2-5 minutes of your pre-exercise med waiting time is probably already absorbed by changing and (mostly) finding your clothes, honestly. And gathering water and whatnot. Not so bad! Should possibly be #1.

8. Play games on your phone

   Okay, so it’s not productive - but look, I should probably limit my playing of games on my phone, and if I put that time into my pre-workout time, that would actually be productive.

9. Plan your week

   Weekend or early-ish Monday workout? Use this time to plan the week ahead (And good job getting off to a good start with a workout.)

10. Do things you’ve been avoiding

    Have you been meaning to send an e-mail or three? Fill this time with those!

11. Clean out your inbox

    Enough said?

12. Do your asthma chores

    I mean, really, waiting for your meds to start working is an asthma chore in itself. So might as well organize your medications, check-in on when those refills are due, or clean a spacer while you’re already in the throes.

13. Drink some water

    It won’t take you fifteen minutes, but you should do that before you exercise anyways, right? Put it on the list!

14. Scroll social media

    I’ve started using Screen Time on my iPhone to limit-ish my time on Facebook. More accurately, after I’ve spent 30 minutes on it for the day, it reminds me every 15 minutes to consent to giving it another 15 minutes. Since you’re already waiting for something, yeah, scroll away.

15. Don’t forget to actually do your workout

    So like, set a timer or something so you don’t get distracted by your (un)productivity.

What do you do after taking asthma medication before exercise?

Do you have any good time-fillers while waiting for your pre-exercise meds to kick in? Leave them in the comments (because, let’s be honest, some of yours could be better)!