Have you noticed that we are becoming less and less active?
- After sitting in the office for a day, she went home and continued to paralyze on her mobile phone and watch dramas.
- It takes courage to even get up on weekends, and laziness can even overcome hunger without breakfast and brunch.
- Even if she asks her friends out to play, she turns around and sits down in various small shops.
A 4-year follow-up survey of 194 countries found that 27.5% of adults did not exercise enough[1]. More local reports show that the situation in our country is even more dire. The National Health Commission (NHC) surveyed 600 million people in 31 provinces across the country and found that less than a quarter of adults do physical activity at least once a week [2].
Shallow guess you've been tricked too. Rest assured, this article is not to advise you to go to the gym to exercise. For us workers, regularly taking out a large chunk of time to exercise is simply a fantasy in the new era.
Is there any painless solution? I was really dug up by my lazy lazy person-
If it's okay, move more
Such a simple truth, does it make you a little disappointed? But really don't underestimate it!
If you move more, you can consume more by sneaking
When it comes to exercise and weight loss, you probably think of the gym.
But there is one activity that we often ignore, from doing housework and walking the dog to climbing stairs and tiptoeing.
这些日常活动消耗的学名叫 NEAT ，也就是 non-exercise activity thermgenesis 的缩写。
A study by the University of Cambridge found that for individuals with long-term sedentary lifestyles, deliberate exercise consumption accounted for only 5~10% of the total daily consumption, while daily activity consumption accounted for 15%~20% of the total consumption [3].
This is opening up a new way of thinking for us: instead of restraining our appetite and painful exercise, we might as well open the door and move twice a day. It doesn't take a lot of time, and it doesn't have that much psychological burden, but it makes a big difference.
A study published in Science, which recruited 10 thinner and 10 mildly obese volunteers, found that fat people sat for an average of two hours more per day than thin people [4].
In another interesting study, researchers followed 42 pairs of twins who were physically inconsistent over a long period of 30 years and found that the physically inactive ones gained an average of 5.4 kg over a period of 5.4 years[5].
Looking at the skinny friends around us, you may also find that in addition to the natural genetic lottery, they often have one thing in common, they are particularly active. After eating, I stood up to digest my food, walked or rode a bicycle not too far away, and the amount of exercise was sneaked up.
Besides, the consumption of a lot of daily activities is really no less than going to the gym to practice. For example, some seemingly effortless household chores, such as hand washing clothes and sweeping the floor, are included in the category of "moderate-intensity" activities, which are similar to the calories burned by cycling and brisk walking [6].
Therefore, friends who don't like to exercise, you can use the existing conditions to move more in your daily life, and you can really achieve painless scale dropping when you add up! If you move more, you can reduce the harm of sitting for too long
The thing that people spend the most time on a daily basis is sedentary.
Sedentary is not just sitting, but also low-intensity activities with an energy expenditure of ≤1.5MET (metabolic equivalent) in addition to sleep [7]. Whether you're sitting, leaning or lying down for a long time, you've been tricked.
Long-term sedentary not only causes a great load on the body, but also causes shoulder and neck pain, lumbar disc herniation, and hip syndrome, and increases the risk of disease[8][9]A study published in The Lancet found that people who spent > 6 hours a day had a 26.7% increased risk of 12 chronic diseases compared with those who spent ≤ 2 hours a day[10].
I'm sure you've seen a lot of popular science articles, suggesting more exercise to combat sedentary lifestyles. Everyone understands the truth, and it is too difficult to implement it in the lives of our workers.
The solution is not so bitter and hateful, let's move more every day, and change the posture.
In a 2020 WHO report on sedentary lifestyle, it was noted that any length of exercise was associated with improved health outcomes[8]. In the vernacular, as long as you move, there are benefits.
If we move a little ~ slightly ~ a little bit of strength in the few minutes we move, the benefits will be even more.
A 7-year follow-up study involving 25,241 participants found that even 1-2 minutes of vigorous exercise per day (VILPA) was associated with a 24-26% reduction in all-cause mortality and cancer mortality, and a 33% reduction in cardiovascular disease mortality[11].
What strenuous exercise can you do in 1-2 minutes? That's too much.
- When walking downstairs to buy coffee, pick up the pace.
- When riding a shared bike, try to accelerate and sprint to feel the speed of the wind.
- In order not to be late, run to catch the bus or subway.
In short, activities that fully stimulate the body, make you feel your heart rate increase, and breathing faster, are counted!
Such a low threshold, a small dose of physical activity can improve health, what do you want a bicycle?
There is no eternal best posture
If you move more, you win
As mentioned earlier, moving can resist the dangers of sedentary life. The reason for this is that there is no such thing as a posture that is suitable for long-term maintenance.
Our human anatomy requires hyperactivity. Take the spine, for example, which is inherently quite flexible.
The individual vertebrae are preceded by discs that allow for a certain degree of flexibility, and the muscles around the spine are also working to help maintain posture and protect the spine from injury.
The natural curvature of the spine is also not fixed, but dynamically variable. When we stand, sit, and bend over, the curvature of the spine changes.
Besides, there really isn't a static posture that's 100% good for the body.
A clinical study surveyed 296 physiotherapists in Europe and asked them to choose one of the best sitting positions from 9 photos of different sitting positions, and 85% of the therapists chose two of them, but the difference in the degree of curvature of the spine between the two sitting positions was not small. And the remaining 7 sitting positions are also available to different physiotherapists [12].
In the study, Pose 5 and Pose 9 were the most chosen.
You see, the choice of professionals is so scattered. The essence of the problem is not bad posture, but that bad posture acts on our body for a long time, which can lead to various injuries.
Maintaining a certain static posture for a long time not only requires continuous muscle exertion, but also tends to lose balance. If one part of the muscle is too tense, the other part of the muscle will be stretched and weakened, which may lead to nerve compression and muscle soreness [13].
I think everyone has also experienced that when the work is more leisurely, the body is also more brisk. And once we are very busy, the shoulders, neck, waist and legs start to be sore.
This is precisely because when we focus on what we need to do, we don't have time to take care of our physical activities and maintain a fixed posture in front of the computer, so the longer we go, the more soreness we feel.
Therefore, the problem with sitting for a long time is not the action of "sitting", but "long". If you sit with a pain in your buttocks, you move your feet, and if you stand with a pain in your feet, you can move your feet for a while, and your stiffness and muscle fatigue will improve when you have more postures [14].
Unexpectedly, when I was a child, I was scolded by my parents for "sitting without sitting, standing without standing", which is actually the best posture!
Although it may seem weird, it is indeed an excellent demonstration of getting moving.
Friends, get moving!
In fact, this thing is not difficult, pay more attention to your body in daily life, once you feel that you have been stuck for a long time, just move, do not delay time, do not get tired, and there can be a lot of benefits, what a big difference!
We have prepared some small actions, covering office, home, and out-of-office scenes, and I feel much better when I go to the official account FeelBetter, and I can get it by replying to the background and moving more, hoping to bring you more movement
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At last
Writing this, even I am sighing, I have written thousands of words with enthusiasm for such a simple truth.
After all, for us who have been sedentary for a long time, we can't remind it many times. Whether you are a long-term desk worker, a lazy person who doesn't like to exercise, or a person with regular exercise habits, you can move more in your daily life.
You don't have to change into sportswear, you don't have to go through the trouble of finding a venue and training videos, as long as you have a heart that wants to start, you can move anytime and anywhere.
Don't underestimate this small action, it is precisely because it is small enough that we will not give up easily, and over time it will form inertia, maybe it can become the beginning of our lazy movement.
So when you see you here, don't be stunned, hurry up and start moving!
There are benefits to moving, and healthy living shouldn't be something that makes us miserable. Regulating the order of eating, sleeping, and exercising to make the body and mind beautiful is a more sustainable life.
FeelBetter is a product from Know Yourself, and we hope to explore a healthy lifestyle with you.
We care about simple and easy-to-use exercise methods, starting with simple small movements to enhance the harmony of body and mind—
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