Hippocrates said that “Walking is man’s best medicine,” and it seems science continues to prove him right.
This week is a sabbatical week for me, and the realization of how much sitting I, we, do in a day has been on my mind. I was recently reading through Sean McCabe’s blog about going from doing zero exercise to running daily, when this passage about the fitness tracker on his Apple Watch struck me:
“ ‘Close your Stand ring by getting up and moving around for at least 1 minute during 12 different hours in the day.’
The blue Stand ring isn’t the:
- Stand-up-from-the-chair-where-you-haven’t-moved-for-an-hour-and-wave-your-arm-for-10-seconds ring.
This is the:
- Stop-being-sedentary-and-move-around-for-a-minute-each-hour ring.
Of course, that’s a bit too long, and they had to pick a one-word name, so they called it the ‘Stand’ ring. But remember, the Stand ring is about more than just standing for a brief moment. It’s about moving around every hour.”
I don’t have an Apple watch or fitness tracker, but I do recognize the complaint from those who wear similar devices. We’ve all heard or experienced plenty of times about the fitness trackers not registering a movement or standing while the person was in the same place for an extended period of time. As Sean captures vividly, the point is not to wave your arm for ten seconds to get the device to register movement and check the box. It’s not a design flaw. It’s about not staying in the same place – whether sitting or standing – for long stretches of time.
This made me wonder what sorts of research has been done on sitting and standing. Obviously, enough studies have found that the simply standing up every hour, and walking around the room makes enough of an impact on health that most fitness tracker creators include it on their devices. I found that the Mayo Clinic reports that long periods of sitting has been associated with increased risk for obesity, heart disease, and cancer. They recommend taking a break from sitting every thirty minutes.
Standing up is one of the most basic movement patterns in our lives; it is also the first step in exercising. Sitting is a natural behavior, and vilifying it isn’t going to inspire healthier choices. “It is also important to state that replacing all sitting with standing is not the goal,” as Philippa Dall, a Senior Research Fellow at Glasgow Caledonian University, writes. Dall goes on to reference studies showing that simply breaking up periods of sitting is associated with better health and lower risk of diabetes. She concludes by agreeing that getting people to stand more frequently, while not a total cure, is a start to building healthier habits, like exercise.
Regular exercise, as we all know, is linked with lowering depression, fatigue, diabetes, lowers risk of death, and increases quality of life. In studies assessing risk factors among deaths, exercise stood out among factors like smoking less or lower cholesterol. “Low fitness was the strongest predictor of death,” says Dr Mike Evans. His research shows that even as little as thirty minutes daily lowers these risks. Meaning, if you took a five-minute walk every hour during your six to eight hour work day, you’ve surpassed that threshold!
It is so easy to sit at the computer working, or in a comfy chair reading, and not move for an hour or two. As technology allows more to be done from a screen, it becomes more imperative for us to build the habit of moving regularly. Whether or not you use a fitness tracker is beside the point; we all need to move. Move is a relative term, of course. It could be as simple as walking around your office for one minute every hour. One man’s warm-up is another man’s 5K; author Haruki Murakami runs a 10K every morning! I haven’t run that far since high school.
I have however, incorporated five minutes of walking or stretching every hour I write, as well as stretching every morning and evening. I do exercise four or five days each week, but as we saw above, breaking up prolonged sitting seems to be very important, too.
So, what does incorporating more movement and less sedentary look like for you?
You could:
- Take five to ten minutes to walk or move around every hour.
- Stand or stretch while watching television. (I know a coach and his wife who do burpees after they finish an episode of a television show! You could modify this, of course.)
- Take a thirty minute walk every morning or evening.
- Stretch for fifteen minutes each morning and evening.
- Stand while talking on the phone.
- Stand up while reading.
Above all, my encouragement is to start small, and find a way to make exercising fun. Meet up with friends to walk. Try a new exercise, yoga, or lifting class. Listen to your favorite podcasts or music only while walking or exercising. Get a fitness tracker to help make it fun by earning badges. The best thing about “walking as medicine” is it is freely available to anyone who chooses it, and easily personalized.
