Momentum Issue 39: Walk for 2 minutes, every hour
Importance
By now, I think we all know that sitting is the new smoking.
We live in a sedentary society - we sit in the car on the way to work, sit at our desks until lunchtime, sit in the lunchroom to eat our lunch, sit at our desks some more, sit in the car on the way home, and then we come home and sit on the couch or in bed.
Sitting too much can lead to so many health issues:
“[T]oo much sitting could shorten your life. Studies in the U.S., Canada, Australia and Asia have all found an association between increased sedentary time and the risk of early death. These associations were independent of traditional risk factors such as smoking, blood pressure, cholesterol levels, waist circumference and diet.” - Chris Kresser
Furthermore, doing a workout at some point during the day isn’t enough to mitigate these detrimental consequences. The key is that we need to sit less.
Fortunately, walking for as little as 2 minutes each hour has been shown to counteract the harmful impacts of sitting. In fact, researchers found that simply walking for 2 minutes can reduce your risk of dying from all causes by a third.
Implementation
Go for a 2 minute walk each hour.
If you can’t walk, simply standing up will be hugely beneficial as well.
If walking is too boring, you can instead use any other form of movement. You really just need to move your body for 2 minutes. You can try:
Yoga or stretching
Push ups
Sit ups
Kettlebell swings
Air squats
Lunges
Pull ups
Jumping jacks
Walk up a flight of stairs
Aim to do this at the top of each hour so it’s easier to remember. Set a timer if you have to. Drink a whole bottle of water so you have to get up to use the bathroom. Do whatever you have to do to ensure you’re up and moving every single hour. (This includes while you’re watching TV!).
Before you go
As I announced last week, my ebook, Habits for Better Sleep recently came out on Amazon.
It’s at a special release price of $2.99, which will be increasing from tomorrow. If you or anyone you know is looking to improve their sleep, I recommend giving it a read! It’s short and highly actionable, so you won’t spend a lot of time reading through information that you can’t apply right away.
You can find the book here.
Also, if you’ve been considering signing up for a Medium Membership, you can do so via this link:
Anyone who signs up through this link will directly support my writing.
Here are free links to some Medium articles, if you’re looking for something to read this week:
This Week’s Sponsor - One Daily Nugget
You’d like to accelerate your personal and professional growth, but you lead a busy life that leaves precious little time for reading long-form content? How about reading just one particularly impactful article every day? Where would you find such an article?
This is where One Daily Nugget comes in: We have assembled a world-class team of curators who are combing through thousands of the most inspirational and insightful articles ever published to discover one self-improvement nugget every day.
Just sign up for our free email list and you will receive your daily nuggets straight in your email inbox, covering topics such as the following:
How Warren Buffett goes to bed smarter than he woke up.
How to use the Gottman Method to build stronger relationships.
How science can help you form lasting healthy habits.
How frugality and badassity enable you to achieve financial freedom.
How Sam Altman manages to be “somewhat more productive than average”.
How a specific form of working memory training can actually raise your IQ.
How to live your life so as to avoid the most common regrets of the dying.
We’d love to welcome you as part of our community of self-improvement aficionados!
Totally! I find if you mix this up with the pomodoro technique, you can concentrate and get that minimal body movement you need without sacrificing too concentration or productivity.