You don’t need to sweat to get fit.
Head out for a ten-minute stroll, three times a day. Yes, you read that right. You do not need to work up a sweat to improve your health and longevity. There is no need to change into workout clothes or ruin your recent blowout. Just put on some comfortable shoes and away you go.
A 1975 Finland same-sex twin cohort study of 7925 healthy men and 7977 healthy women tested the effect of walking thirty minutes a day at least six times per month on health. (1) The doctors discovered that twins who regularly walked were 56% less likely to die during the twenty-year study than their inactive twin. (1)
Even after factoring in genetics and environmental elements, walking was associated in the twin study with significantly reduced mortality. (1)
How are you going to fit walking into your day?
Brainstorm ideas of how you can incorporate three ten-minute intervals of walking into your routine. Can you grab your coffee and drink it with colleagues on a walk around the block?
Do you have some phone calls to make? Grab your phone and head outside for a walk while you talk on the go. If you aren't able to leave your work building, you can always climb the flights of stairs for ten minutes.
Are you meeting a colleague to review the status of a project? Take her with you and discuss points as you walk. Take audio notes that convert to text.
Do you generally talk over the day with your kids or husband when you get home?
You could make a habit out of taking a family walk every night through your neighborhood after dinner. Do you meet friends for a glass of wine after work? Propose to go for a ten-minute walk through a scenic park or along a waterfront before you enjoy drinks together.
By going out for just a ten-minute ramble around the block three times a day, you will be radically improving your health.
By evaluating eighteen high-standard studies, two scientists at University College London analyzed the impact of walking on 459,833 cardiovascular-free participants over the course of 11.3 years. (2) The results are shocking.
Walking 5.5 miles a week cut the risk of cardiovascular events by 31% and of dying during the study by 32%. (2) Walking can do more than reduce your risk of dropping dead of a heart attack.
Walking thirty minutes a day, five days a week can improve your cholesterol, blood pressure, diabetes, obesity, and inflammation. (3) Even if you walk for just 21 minutes a day, you can decrease your risk of heart disease by 30%, according to Harvard Medical School. (3)
Perhaps you aren't worried about grasping your heart and falling to the floor anytime soon. Walking will improve your health in immediate ways as well.
Walking will loosen the muscles in your legs and back, which will release tension built up from sitting for hours. Getting up and moving will improve blood flow so that you will return to your desk or life with more of a glow. https://commentsoigner.club/sante/colon-polyps-exercises-yoga-recovery-diet-prevention/ Sitting down and focusing on your work will come easier after a ten-minute roam outside, too.
Not only that, but you will experience higher sleep quality by going out for a walk. (4) A recent scientific study of 49 women tested the effect of a moderate intensity walking program on sleep quality.
The researchers discovered that moderate-intensity walking caused the participants to wake up less often during the night and to spend less time lying awake at night in bed after four months of walking. (5)
Going for a walk will also lower anxiety, depression, and anger while boosting your mood and lowering your stress level. (6) Researchers followed 33,908 adults without any mental disorders or limiting physical health conditions for 11 years. They discovered that just 1-2 hours of moderate exercise like walking a week reduced the risk of depression by 44%. (7).
Exercise may invoke images of people grimacing with sweat rolling down their faces for you. Replace those mental pictures with someone stepping outside and taking a peaceful ten-minute walk along through a scenic park. That’s all it takes to start improving your physical and psychological health.
"Walking is a man's best medicine." -Hippocrates
Spend Ten Minutes Outside.
Long-term stress can kill you. Meeting the demands coming from work, family, and social connections and every which where can kick your body’s fight or flight response into high gear, and leave it there.
Where’s the off switch?
Exercise is an effective way to calm the body. The problem is that you might be suffering from severe fatigue if you have been under long-term stress. You feel all wired up, but tired too. This is when you may reach for the glass of wine, and beer, and fall in front of the TV. You aren’t calmed down enough to go to bed, but you are exhausted. The next day the entire cycle starts over.
What can you do differently?
You’re already going to incorporate three ten-minute walks into your day. But you don’t even need to go for a walk to kick your body out of the fight or flight mode and into calm. Just stepping outside and contemplating something green will lower your heart rate and reduce your stress levels.
Yes, I’m telling you to go outside and do nothing but watch your thoughts.
Research reported by the American Psychological Association reveals that looking at nature, even if it is just a lone tree in a sea of concrete, can reduce your anxiety and enable you to concentrate better afterward. (9)
If you are too tired to walk, sit on a bench, choose a tree to contemplate, and try to be in the present. For only five minutes, focus on your breath, the feel of your clothes and the wind on your skin, the sounds around you, and the pattern of the tree bark. Mindfulness is the focus on the pause between two breaths.
Do you want to restore your ability to, recover from stress? Head outside and contemplate the beauty of nature. Focusing a few minutes on nature will also improve your ability to concentrate and increase your sense of general well-being. (11)(12).
Shift Your Desk To Look Out at Green.
Don’t have time to head outside? Find a window overlooking a green scene.
Researchers from the University of Illinois, Department of Landscape Architecture found that looking at treetops from their school windows not only reduced stress in high school students but improved mental fatigue as well. (10).
Looking out at a green landscape not only has a positive impact on your mental health. Green eye candy can also decrease mental fatigue, help you recover from stress, and restore your ability to concentrate. (10)(12)
Are you packed into a cubicle in a grey corporate dessert? You can create your green view by bringing in plants for your desk. Using your lunch break to head outside and search for an oasis of plants is another way to decrease your stress levels.
Spice Up Your Morning.
Add ¼ of a teaspoon of the turmeric spice, ½ teaspoon of cinnamon, ¼ teaspoon of ginger, ½ teaspoon of black pepper, and ¼ teaspoon of cardamom to a cup of almond milk, cashew, or coconut milk and warm. If you have a milk foaming machine, you can add everything to it and warm it this way.
You can drink this antioxidant and health-packed latte first thing in the morning.
Turmeric is arguably the healthiest spice.
Turmeric contains curcumin, a potent healing compound. Researchers are fascinated with the power of turmeric; more than 5,000 clinical studies have been conducted to test turmeric’s power in disease prevention and treatment.
Turmeric has antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and anti-cancer properties. Ongoing clinical trials are testing the power of the curcumin in turmeric to prevent and treat a wide variety of cancers and brain diseases. (14)
Dr. Greger reveals in his scientifically researched book, How Not to Die, that turmeric effectively fights against cancer-causing substances in clinical trials. A recent study in 2017 further supports the cancer-fighting potential of curcumin. Curcumin was proven to be chemopreventative against a carcinogenic in a recent clinical trial. (15)
Even if you aren’t concerned about cancer, adding some turmeric to your latte or oatmeal in the morning can act as a painkiller, anti-inflammatory, antidepressant, and even improve your skin. (18)(19)(20)
With all the benefits of turmeric, you could add the rest of the spices to add flavor. Each spice in the latte contains significant health benefits as well.
Cinnamon
Studies indicate that cinnamon could lower your blood sugar and has anti-inflammatory, antimicrobial, and antioxidant effects. (16)(17)
Ginger
Ginger fights cancer, as well as being anti-inflammatory, and anti-fungal and supports the digestive system, weight loss, and immunity. (20)(21) In a recent clinical study of ovarian cancer, researchers found ginger extract to have anticancer properties. (22)
Ginger even worked the same or better when tested in clinical trials against leading pharmaceuticals to treat menstrual pain (23) and migraines (24), without the adverse side effects of the expensive drugs.
One hundred patients in a double-blinded randomized clinical trial were chosen at random to receive either the drug sumatriptan or ginger powder. The effectiveness of the treatment was recorded for the next five migraines.
What was the result? Are you guessing that the expensive drug's efficacy was higher than the low-cost ginger powder?
The treatment of frequent migraine attacks with ginger powder was found in the clinical trial to be statistically compared with the drug. (24)
Let’s move on to pepper- why are you adding that to your latte?
Stirring black pepper into your latte increases the potential efficacy of the curcumin by up to 2,000%! (25) Besides being antibacterial and filled with antioxidants, black pepper may also increase your body’s resting metabolic rate, which can help you in weight control. (26)
Add a final dash of cardamom to your latte, and you could help prevent blood sugar spikes and reduce the ability of fat to develop around your middle. (27)
Sleep… But Not Too Much?
A research study took place in China in which 12,671 individuals, of which 3,158 were between 90-99 years old and 2293 were centenarians. The researchers discovered that poor sleep quality was associated with a 26% higher risk of death in the following three years for study participants. (28)
It wasn’t just not getting enough high-quality sleep that increased mortality risk.
Sleeping too much also increases the risk of death.
Getting six hours or less or more than ten hours of sleep caused an 18 to 22% higher risk of mortality when compared to participants who slept eight hours daily. (28) Three years later, poor health was associated with more than ten hours or less than five hours of sleep per day. (28)
An analysis of 27 scientific studies, aggregating over 70,000 elderly participants, affirmed that sleeping too little or too much-increased mortality risk. (29) Insightful in this study was the association found between sleeping too long and increased cardiovascular mortality risk. (29)
Are naps bad for your health?
Besides, taking naps of under 30 minutes increased the risk of mortality, although naps of over two hours in length did not. (29)
Prioritize getting eight hours of sleep a night to improve your health, and lower your risk of stroke, heart disease, and obesity. (30)(31)
Not to mention, get eight hours of sleep, and you will be more vibrant, find it easier to concentrate, retain information better, and be more playful. (32) Sweet dreams!
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https://www.ted.com/talks/russell_foster_why_do_we_sleep Russell Foster. Ted Talk: Why Do We Sleep?