The time between Christmas and News Years is, unofficially, the National Sweatpants Week. A time for long breakfasts that fade into lunch, naps, hanging out, informal family gatherings–all activities that can be undertaken and are perhaps best undertaken while wearing sweatpants.
But now it’s over. You know you need to get off the couch. It’s a question of how and when.
The how is your problem. The when–if you believe the evidence that keeps piling up–should be now. Doing virtually anything is much healthier than sitting there. Put another way, sitting is the new smoking. Put yet another way, making a few modest adjustments to a sedentary lifestyle will reap big rewards. Years of life and more enjoyment from those years.
If you want details on this, start with Gretchen Reynolds’ book, The First 20 Minutes. Reynolds writes the “Phys Ed” column for the New York Times, and her book does a nice job of updating misconceptions about fitness and exercise (touching your toes is not a good way to warm up, for example). It also recaps studies that demonstrate the big benefits that come from just a few minutes of exercise. Hence, the title.
She’s hardly alone in preaching this gospel. The journal PLoS Medicine recently published research showing that exercise is hugely valuable even for people who aren’t overweight. The study keys off participants’ body mass index or BMI, a measure that’s falling out of favor in some quarters. Never mind. Focus on this, from the L.A. Times review of the findings: “The latest study adds to mounting evidence that a sedentary lifestyle may trump obesity as a corrosive influence on health.”
And if you watched the ball drop on Times Square and suddenly thought about your mortality, consider this: “It took as little as the metabolic equivalent of a 10-minute daily walk to start extending one’s life span, the study found. Those who adhered to recommendations to get at least 2.5 hours of moderate-intensity exercise — or 1.25 hours of vigorous exercise — per week reaped gains of roughly 3.5 years.”
But more life alone isn’t the point, is it? It needs to be good time, time spent doing agreeable things well enough to enjoy them. And it can be: Reynolds quotes a professor of physiology who’s an expert on old athletes. According to Dr. Hirofumi Tanaka, “A great deal of the physical effects that we once thought were caused by aging are actually the result of inactivity.”
It’s that simple. Ten minutes, 20 minutes, 1.25 hours of vigorous exercise. Whatever. Just get up.
Photo: Fat cat by Juddo, via Wikimedia Commons.
