Imagine that you’re inside a grocery store and you spent almost an hour standing up and walking around. You walk a lot, have you? And then you believe that you have ticked off all the items in your grocery list, but while you were waiting in line at the cashier, you realize that you forgot 1 last item.
You try to remember which aisle is it that you saw this item, but you can’t. You’re thinking, if I go back into the grocery jungle, it’s going to take you at least 2 minutes to find it and then fall in line again.
So now you’re left with the dilemma to move or not to move. What do we say?
We say go walk an extra two minutes
Believe it or not, a recent study showed that those who move and walk around instead of sitting down for two minutes every hour had a lowered risk of dying by one-third.
This data comes from a study conducted by the Northwestern Medical School who studied 3,626 individuals for aging and has been with them for three years.
What does this mean for us?
We all know that we should not sit for long periods of time, as this can severely affect our health in a bad way. And we also do know that it is recommended to do a moderate activity for 2.5 hours per week. But what we don’t know is that being active for 2.5 hours per week isn’t enough. What happens to the rest of the 98 percent of the time that we are awake? What are we supposed to do with it?
This is why for the optimum benefit, aside from your daily cardio exercise, make sure that you stand every now and then and move. It doesn’t even have to be brisk walking, as long as you are moving and not sitting down, you’re winning.
So the next time you think that walking and wasting two minutes of getting lost or taking a longer route is going to hurt your schedule, think again. It’s going to give you more benefits in the long run.
And for those who do not know how to manage fitting in two minutes of activity, watch this video as there are some simple household chores that can actually help you move:
Stop taking the elevator and use the stairs instead. Those are the extra 2 minutes per day. Sounds easier, right? ?
I agree. We treat those 2 minutes like it’s a waste of time, but it can really add up in the long run and we’ll be healthier.
I treat cleaning my house as an extra 2 minutes of walking around and moving. I do it every day even if sometimes I don’t think I need to do it. I sometimes even wiggle and dance while I do it just to enjoy the fact that I’m keeping myself healthy, even if it’s not an hour of exercise.?
With the lifestyle that people have nowadays, it’s almost impossible to be active. There’s so much demand to work, which basically means being in the office or sitting in front of our computers all day.
True. We have really sedimentary lifestyles now. Even kids nowadays no longer do physical activities.
2 minutes isn’t much. I’m actually willing to spend about 5 minutes, not just 2 minutes every day of doing more physical activities.
Oh my god, the photo. It’s like it makes us want to work standing.?
I’m learning to love household chores because I can’t fit exercise in my routine. So what I do is I make sure than at least 3x a week, I clean my room or at least a part of the house.
I really need more exercise in my life. I spend too much time sitting and working. I could sometimes feel my legs feeling weak from all the sitting.
Go up and down the stairs more often. I think that really helps too!
That’s actually a big help because flight of stairs are better than flat ground.