By Lisa Breslin
Cindi Day, clinical exercise program coordinator at the Medical University of South Carolina Wellness Center, has always loved helping people. For Day, not serving others is an unacceptable waste.
“One of the biggest things is that I have this knowledge base and experience that I worked hard to gain. It is just going to waste if I can’t use the experience I have to help other people,” she said. “I think most people enjoy giving and serving others for similar reasons.”
When Day decided to become an exercise professional, she sought to help people experience the benefits of healthy habits. She had seen the results of incorporating small elements – a 10-minute walk each day or a 15-minute block of time to reset and become mindful – and wanted as many people as possible to see those results, too.
“As I started to work with populations with special indications and the aging population, I realized that the little things we do are so much more exponential for them,” Day explained. “Small habit changes make huge differences, so my passion shifted.”
Many programs the Wellness Center offers are the result of Day’s creation and/or input and leadership, most notably Rock Steady Boxing and Pick It Up for people with Parkinson’s disease and Fight Back for breast cancer survivors. In January, she and her team will unveil the Purple Survivors Project for women navigating gynecological cancer.
To refuel, Day spends time being around people she loves. “When I leave work, I go straight to the gym and then home for family time,” she said. “Weeknights are for family dinners. There might be times when my daughter, Olive, just sits and chats with us, but she will make something.”
They walk together as a family, too, and Day and her husband, Jordan, set date nights once a week. Granted, some date nights are just going grocery shopping together, she confessed.
Even with time off for family, serving others will always be Day’s go-to source to refuel. Her sense of purpose remains keen, she said, when she is part of someone’s growth – when they “find confidence doing activities that others said they could never do.”
Cindi Day
MUSC Wellness Center
45 Courtenay Drive, Charleston
843-792-5757
web.musc.edu/resources/health-and-wellness/wellness-center
