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I read the research on the latest ‘best practices’ for staying well. I used to stretch, particularly my aching fingers, for 30 seconds on each knuckle, three times a week.

As long as I kept doing that, I wasn’t aware of having fingers. But skip a week, and they started aching again.

Then I read about the latest research on stretching. Maybe not the gold standard, but well above a YouTube influencer without credentials.

It recommended one minute, based on what I considered proper research.

I doubled my stretching for each knuckle, and what a difference. I could go for over a month without being conscious of my fingers throughout the day.

I just finished reading a column by the same author that ties together two types of exercise and their respective benefits for longevity and overall quality of life.

One type of exercise was labelled ‘vigorous/moderate.’ The other type was light activities, defined as pretty much anything day-to-day that wasn’t sitting.

The combination of vigorous/moderate and light activity yields much better health outcomes than either alone. So, 335 minutes of daily light activity and 20 minutes of daily vigorous/moderate activity yielded a 6-fold reduction in mortality risk.

Don’t give up yet. Just halving these numbers results in a threefold reduction in risk. Another bonus is that vigorous or moderate activity can be spread out over different days.

My current practice for the vigorous/moderate target is to reach a heart rate of 125 bpm for 50 minutes, 3 times a week. That’s my 150 minutes each week.

The light activity is a challenge, but I have been making progress over the last few years. Whenever I park in a parking lot, I find a stall as far as practical from the entrance. I push open doors rather than using the handicapped switch for an automatic opening. This has the advantage of a slightly greater effort, but more importantly, it raises my self-awareness of finding ways to be inefficient.

Now that I am more confident than ever that light activity can produce noticeable health benefits, I’ve identified several changes in behaviour towards being less efficient.

Before today, I kept the post box key in the car so I could pull over on my way home to retrieve my mail from the community mailboxes. I now keep the key on a hook by my front door, which forces me to walk 100 metres to the community mailboxes.

I have one flight of stairs to the basement in my home. Now, whenever I go downstairs, I’m going to immediately go back up again before returning to the basement on my original mission. How wonderfully inefficient.

When I stand from a seated position, I am going to stop using my arms or momentum to get to a standing position. Just the power in my legs.

For the next Blog I write, I’ll stand at the kitchen counter to use my laptop. I may not get through the whole Blog at first, but by repeatedly using this standing option, I’ll be successful. 

Please give this a bit of a think. Are there ways you can identify to improve the benefits of light activity in your life?

Please comment: Send me an email with your bit of a think. I am curious about your thoughts.

Photo by Khiet Tam on Unsplash

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And my thanks to St. Albert’s 50+ Activity Centre for making this Blog possible.

Volunteer Blogger