Sitting, lying down and staring at screens. As much as 90% of our lives are now passive, sedentary. Conversely, only 10% of our day is some form of active time and only 1% is physically demanding activities such as exercise. No wonder then that many people experience constant fatigue, neck and back pain, weight gain and general apathy.
How to tackle the health risks of sitting
Fortunately, the harms of inactivity can be easily prevented by taking more breaks and engaging in daily physical activity. Best of all, the health benefits start accruing as soon as you start moving. A small but effective health move is to stand up at least every half hour.
Every time you get out of the chair, you activate your muscles and your metabolism. If done regularly, it already has a big impact on your health and ability to function. But the health benefits are even greater when your day includes active activities.
More exercise or less sitting?
In addition to increasing physical activity, it is worth considering ways to reduce the amount of sitting in practice. An excellent goal for health and fitness is to try to limit the amount of sitting to no more than six hours a day. It is therefore worth rethinking your daily routine. For example, trips to work, hobbies and the grocery store should be made on foot or by bike if at all possible. Instead of using the lift, you can take the stairs. If your day involves a lot of phone calls, it's worth considering whether you could take a walk outside for some fresh air. In addition, many household chores are actually good low-intensity aerobic exercise. For example, vacuuming triples your metabolism compared to sitting alone.
Everyday activities and exercise are not mutually exclusive, they are mutually supportive. Daily physical activity helps keep your metabolism and body active throughout the day, making it easier and more likely to exercise in the evening.
Exercise to increase your breaking point
As the name suggests, fitness exercise increases fitness and performance. It helps the body and mind to tolerate stress better and recover faster. In addition to aerobic exercise, it's also worth exercising your muscles at least a couple of times a week. A good alternative to traditional muscle training is a three-movement micro-training session, which activates the body's major muscle groups with a few minutes of exercise, even during the working day.
While effective exercise sounds like the best way to avoid bad posture and prevent metabolic decline, exercise alone is not the best weapon, nor is it enough. Or do you think a 90% dose of inactivity is remedied by 1% of super hard training?
So the answer lies in much smaller but more frequent actions to stimulate the metabolism and gently coax the muscles to work, even during the working day. Even just two minutes of activity per hour during the working day has significant health consequences.
What matters is how active you are when you're not exercising!
It is a relief to know that every step, repetition and active choice builds up our health capital and builds our future well-being. From the first step, we start consuming a fuel mix of fats and sugars.
There is no getting away from the fact that when starting physical activity, promoting health and functional capacity, and improving fitness and performance, the role of everyday activity, gentle exercise and low-intensity pleasure-oriented exercise is even more essential than intensive training. More important than exercise, therefore, is how active you are when you are not exercising.
So make the most of the opportunities that everyday life offers in terms of activation. While it may seem silly, small choices can easily add up to a bigger cake than your exercise intake in terms of energy expenditure and body-shaping and fitness-enhancing activity. Take the stairs, walk to the shop, cycle to work, mow the lawn or clean up with a fitness mindset. So understand the potential of everyday activity and harness it as your competitive advantage in the fight against modern inactivity and excessive sedentary lifestyles.
In the Vointy app, you can set yourself one break reminder for each day and choose a break exercise of a few minutes from our library. Repeated daily, you'll be doing a great service to your well-being!
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