Everyday Activity: Exercise That Comes Naturally
You can decide to upgrade the level of physical activity in your everyday life. That is a healthy living choice that brings significant benefits without a lot of extra time expenditure.
Morning runs around the block are great, but you’ll get even more benefit if you don’t spend the rest of the day sitting at a desk and all evening sitting on a couch. Think of your everyday physical behavior as an exercise opportunity—and make the most of it.
Unscheduled exercise is activity that takes place every day. Some researchers call this activity “Incidental Physical Activity” (IPA), and the benefits of this type of activity are now receiving some attention.[1]Most of us don’t consciously think of everyday activity as an exercise, but if it involves moving, bending or stretching your body, it’s exercise.
Once you recognize that everyday movements potentially are making you healthier, they take on new value. One study found that simply being aware that everyday movement is exercise, somehow makes that exercise more effective.[2]If you recognize its value, even loading and emptying the dishwasher can be exercise, especially if you arrange to keep your dinnerware on some high and some low shelves. Or is that stretching it?
You do need scheduled purposeful exercise, but if you adopt good everyday activity habits, then you win yourself an exercise bonus. Everyday activity in the form of IPA has value, so consider any situation that requires body movements as an extra investment in your body’s health.
The Path of More Resistance
Ordinary activities all help: Climbing stairs instead of using the elevator, doing housework, being active at work, tending to your herbs and vegetables. Even passionate behavior makes a contribution; anything that raises your heart rate and makes you slightly out of breath is useful exercise.[3]
However, our natural inclination is to be efficient. If you forget your keys, the extra walk back to the house makes you frustrated. On the other hand, it’s not necessarily bad to walk a bit more. A change in attitude about any inconvenience that involves extra walking—an understanding that such movement is good for your health—not only can reduce stress-inducingannoyances, it can lead to a lifestyle change.
Instead of always looking for the shortest path when at home or at work or at the department store, select different routes. Don’t move the coffee machine that’s on the other side of the office, enjoy the walk. Take the stairs from the second floor of the mall instead of the elevator. Don’t stress out searching for the closest parking spot, just park the car. Choose movement.
Walk More, Drive Less
The invention of the motor car was responsible for a massive decline in human physical activity, perhaps even more than the invention of the cushioned sofa.
If you can find ways of using your legs instead of sitting in a car, you can add significantly to your quota of Incidental Physical Activity.
Do you live close to shops, supermarkets, bars and restaurants? If so, what is your decision point for driving rather than taking the car? A 10-minute walk? A 30-minute walk? Think about it. Many people take the car to avoid even a short walk. It’s understandable if weather is an issue, if you have children, if you’re making a grocery run or another legitimate reason. But for the rest of you, there’s no excuse. So, try this: Instead of driving, say to a nearby restaurant, try parking five minutes away. You can walk off some of the meal afterward—and you’ll take advantage of an IPA opportunity at the same time.
If you have a gym membership, it’s probably not far from where you live given all the fitness locations that abound. Consider walking, running or biking to the gym and back home again. If you have a 10-minute jog to the gym and 10 minutes back again, that’s 20 minutes of cardio work and a bonus toward that day’s IPA achievement.
If you can walk or cycle to work, consider doing it—even if it’s only on occasion. Some of you have opportunities to combine walking or cycling with the use of public transport. Public transport can be an exercise enabler that fits right in to your everyday life. Bring a change of clothes and some toiletries in your backpack; even if there’s no shower at work, you can still clean up before clocking in. Too many people simply make the obvious choice: driving. Get past the obvious and examine your commuting options with an open mind.
Pick Up the Pace
Little children, once they learn to walk, seem to want to run everywhere. Older children are not good at sitting still or standing in one place; they fidget and move around. Most adolescents and young adults still fidget and walk briskly, sometimes they run and walk alternately if they are in a hurry, which is a highly effective way of covering a distance without getting too breathless.
At some point as humans mature, they start to stroll instead of walk. There’s nothing wrong with strolling on occasion. But all the time?
I suppose that if someone has everything in their life so well-organized that they’re never late, then there’s no sense of urgency. But some people drive their cars at outrageous and illegal speeds, then meander slowly across the parking lot uponarriving at their destination.
Whether you think of yourself as a slow or fast person, decide to kick it up a notch from time to time. In addition to taking every opportunity to walk more, aim to walk just a little faster without running out of breath. Be brisk!
Stand More, Sit Less
While it’s difficult to separate out the health risk of sitting from other factors, we still know for sure that more exercise is better than less exercise. Your joints and muscles are more active when you’re standing or walking, compared to sitting down for long periods. So it makes sense to avoid sitting if you don’t have to.[4]
If you have to wait for a bus or a train or a plane, spend as much time as possible standing or strolling around. Even if you’re waiting to see a doctor, walk around the waiting room or outside the office if there’s some delay. Ask reception to ping you on your cellphone; they’ll be happy to do it, because it’s all for the good of your health.
In a confined space, like a plane, it’s not easy to find IPA opportunities. Still, you can walk the aisle and stretch during a flight. On some airlines, the cabin crew will remind passengers of the dangers of sitting in one position too long, including the potential for deep vein thrombosis. Walking the aisle might annoy a few of the passengers, but the benefits outweigh their issues. Sitting still in a cramped space is bad for your circulation, muscles and lungs—so get up and move around.
If you work at a desk, and you have a say over your working environment, ask for a sit-standdesk—and aim to move between standing, sitting and walking around several times each day. Your boss isn’t cooperating? Remind her or him that requiring you to sit for extended periods will damage your health. Additionally, being unable to control aspects of your working environment adds to your stress. We all know that employees who are happy do better work[5], so an uncooperative boss is deliberately damaging productivity. You might not want to put it to your boss that way—then again, no one can fault you for advocating for your well-being.
How do you spend your evenings? If it involves more sitting, remember to stand up and walk twice an hour, at least. Ever tried watching a movie standing up? Reading a book? It’s possible. You can buy a couple of high-top tables, the type you see in many bars. Using one of those makes the act of standing up feel obvious and natural. A martini is not required for this exercise.
Our modern culture is predominantly sedentary. So much of our daily routine involves sitting down. Fight the norm. A thousand or more years before chairs were invented[6], our ancestors were naturally inclined to stand, squat or lie down instead of sit. There is evidence that their knees were in better condition than ours are today, even with all that running around chasing their meals.[7]
[1]. Incidental Physical Activities (IPA): https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/06/110628113141.htm
[2]. Hotel Maids Challenge the Placebo Effect: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=17792517
[3]. Sex makes you look younger and live longer: http://www.cosmopolitan.com/uk/love-sex/sex/a9538529/health-benefits-of-regular-sex/and https://www.prevention.com/sex/7-things-happen-when-you-stop-having-sex?utm_content=listiclefooter&utm_medium=Outbrain&utm_source=prevention.com
[4]. Sitting is bad: http://www.cnn.com/2015/01/21/health/sitting-will-kill-you/index.html
[5]. Harvard Business Review: https://hbr.org/2015/12/proof-that-positive-work-cultures-are-more-productive
[6]. A Global History of Sitting Down: https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2016/08/chairs-history-witold-rybczynski/497657/
[7]. 6,000-Year-Old Knee Joints Suggest Osteoarthritis Isn’t Just Wear And Tear http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2017/08/15/543402095/creaky-knees?sc=tw.
Dr. Marc Ronert - Age Later 