When I confer with my patients about exercise, I normally advise them to do the really helpful amount: 150 minutes of moderate-intensity activity per week. But three papers I read this week are making me rethink that strategy.
Two papers were published this week. BMJ Challenge my emphasis on the 150-minute-a-week goal. An American and Australian team That goal has been questioned for older adults, lots of whom find it difficult to get enough exercise. A French researcher identified that while the advice was sound, it's just as essential to encourage individuals who don't exercise in any respect to a minimum of do just a little.
Both BMJ papers describe exercise as a spectrum, with no activity at one end and 150 minutes or more per week at the opposite. There is a continuum in between. Getting individuals to maneuver along this continuum, with little to no exercise, little to more, and so forth, is a very important goal – one which I plan to pursue.
My latest method
On the exercise front, I keep asking my patients “Are you physically active?” and “How much time do you devote to exercise each week?” For those that will not be lively, as a substitute of aiming for 150 minutes per week, I might recommend just a number of minutes of exercise a day. Over time, I might encourage them to extend this time by a number of minutes a day.
I also want my patients to give it some thought, and calculate how much time they spend sitting. One method to do that is:
- Write the time you get off the bed and write “UP” next to the time.
- Every moment throughout the day you sit or lie down, write down the time and write “down” next to it.
- Each time you rise up, rewrite the time and write “UP” next to it.
- Add all of the minutes between each “UP” time and “DOWN” time. This is the same as the whole variety of minutes you spend doing “light activity” for the day.
- Do this on two different days – someday at work or school, and someday at home.
You may time your “UP” minutes using a stopwatch or the stopwatch function on a smartphone.
Instead of aiming for a particular goal, try step by step increasing the variety of minutes you're “UP” every day over the subsequent several weeks.
Getting more exercise—even should you don't hit your goal of 150 minutes or more per week—and sitting less is an excellent plan for higher health.