Exercise: not as hard as we think
Disclaimer: I am not an exercise expert, but I see the health impacts on lots of my clients either from not exercising enough or, more commonly, doing too much of the wrong kind of exercise. For specific advice on your exercise needs, please consult a physical trainer.
Exercise, physical activity, movement: call it what you will, but we all know that getting some of it into our daily routine is essential for us to function optimally.
The benefits of exercise are multifold: it can decrease the risk of many chronic illnesses [i], improve our mood, and decrease feelings of depression and anxiety. It is crucial for bone and muscle health [ii]. It also helps reduce stress and improve sleep [iii]. Physical activity also benefits our immune system [iv].
Conversely, doing NOTHING is a high-risk activity. A 2012 study [v] likened the detrimental effects on our health of sitting watching TV to the impact of other chronic disease risk factors. They claimed that a lifetime average of 6 hrs of tv a day could shorten life expectancy by 4.8 years!
Photo by Nicole Wilcox on Unsplash
Six hours might sound a lot, but a survey from 2012 [vi] tells us that 30% of UK adults average six or more sedentary hours per day during the week, with that number going up to 37% of adults at the weekends. And that was ten years ago.
The latest Health Survey for England, which asked about physical activity levels, was in 2018. The findings suggest that over a quarter of adults participate in less than 30 minutes of moderate or vigorous physical activity per week [vii].
Undoubtedly, leading a sedentary lifestyle, combined with a lack of physical activity, increases the risk for many chronic conditions, including type 2 diabetes, hypertension, and osteoporosis. It also has a negative impact on mood and cognition [viii].
The last bit of gloomy news is that it's impossible to out-exercise a sedentary lifestyle. So if we are sitting down all day at work, we can't just undo the damage by working out at the gym at full throttle on our way home. There's no doubt that most of us are spending more and more of our time sitting, often staring at a screen. And there are always excuses as to why we aren't moving more: not enough time, it's not convenient, it's embarrassing, it's not enjoyable, it's boring and so on. But we can do better than this.
We need to break up the time we spend being sedentary. Incorporating activity into our day will improve our metabolism, energy, and sleep and reduce the risk for chronic illnesses.
SO NOW THE GOOD NEWS:
The UK Chief Medical Officer recommends that adults take part in 150 minutes (2 1/2 hours) of exercise a week [ix], but it doesn't have to be done in big chunks. It all counts; every step!
ALL the exercise or movement we do in one day counts toward our target total. So three short bursts of 10-minutes of activity are as beneficial to our health as if we did 30 minutes in one go.
ALL physical activity counts – playing with the kids, doing the housework, getting stuck into the garden etc.
A recent study [x] concluded that 'Exercise Snacks' (defined as "brief isolated bouts of vigorous exercise performed over a day") are a time-efficient way of improving cardiovascular fitness and reducing the impact of being sedentary.
An older study from 2014 [xi] concluded that carrying out 'exercise snacks' before eating main meals supports blood sugar balance in those with insulin resistance. In addition, doing several short bursts of exercise throughout the day was MORE beneficial than a single longer session.
I want to mention one final piece of research [xii] (just to hammer this home), which compared people doing 3 minutes of intense exercise per session (with a total time commitment of 30 minutes over the week) to a group who did 150 minutes of continuous training. They found that the short bursts provided as many health benefits despite taking a fraction of the time. Win win!
Too much exercise can be detrimental.
The body perceives exercise as a stress: it is the same stress response that we experience when we can't pay our bills or have a difficult day at work. Prolonged stress (with no adequate time for recovery) can have detrimental impacts on sleep, gut health, immune health and mental wellbeing.
What is too much is down to the individual's health status. If you're finding your workouts increasingly hard, or you've hit a plateau (with strength building, weight loss, or whatever your aim is), or you are suffering from excessive muscle soreness or joint pain, it might be because you are working out too much. Put the brakes on for a bit or swap out for a different type of activity until your body is in better shape to deal with a more intense workout.
SOME IDEAS:
Choose the stairs over the lift EVERY TIME.
Find ways to move that feel right to you, that bring you something, whether that's a smile on your face, a sense of achievement, or just getting out of your comfort zone. That could be walking, dancing, gardening or playing with the kids. When was the last time you hula-hooped?
Seize the opportunity – a 30-minute walk could also be your chance to do a bit of forest bathing [xiii], a chance to catch up on a podcast or bond with your dog.
Latch 'exercise snacks' onto existing habits. The best way to form a new habit is to piggyback an existing one:
Squats while brushing your teeth
Press-ups against a wall or kitchen top whilst waiting for the kettle to boil
Walk up and down the stairs a couple of times during the ad break
Interrupt hours sitting with some short movement breaks: a downward dog, a few starjumps or bicep curls with dumbells. Breaking up your day like this has been shown to have various health benefits [xiv].
Do something you love and set yourself up to be successful: if you don't enjoy how you exercise, there is NO way you are going to stick to it, and we want to set up instinctive habits for life here, things that slot into your routine without even really having to think about it.
Get out of your rut. Just because you LOVED running in your twenties and thirties doesn't mean that's the best exercise for you in your forties. As we head towards menopause, it's vital to include resistance work and strength training for our bone health. If you're used to pounding the treadmill, try switching a session out for some time on your yoga mat. Chill.
Join a local outdoor exercise group – meeting others with similar intentions as you will help with accountability, and the social connection can help support your mental and physical health. Also, exercising outdoors brings its own benefits: being exposed to natural daylight will help keep your circadian rhythm in sync.
[i] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29150166/
[ii] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29710770/
[iii] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25596964/
[iv] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32342473/
[v] https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/46/13/927
[vi] https://files.digital.nhs.uk/publicationimport/pub13xxx/pub13218/hse2012-ch2-phys-act-adults.pdf
[vii] https://files.digital.nhs.uk/B5/771AC5/HSE18-Adult-Health-Related-Behaviours-rep-v3.pdf
[viii] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7700832/
[x] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34669625/
[xi] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24817675/
[xii] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27115137/