HAVE AN EXERCISE SNACK!
During this season of giving, movement is one of the best gifts you can give yourself. Not only does it strengthen our muscles, bones, and heart, but it also boosts our mood by releasing feel-good hormones called endorphins. Exercise snacks, or short bouts of exercise, can help you reach your physical activity goals and may have other health benefits.
One study compared the effects of 2 to 4 minutes of stair climbing each hour over a 9-hour period with sitting and no stair climbing over the same period (1). Participants consumed the same meals during this time, and the stair climbing group had lower insulin levels among participants with overweight. Regardless of your weight, breaking up the time you spend sitting is a great habit.
Adding exercise snacks to your routine may help future-proof your body against minor injuries. In office culture, we are sitting all day long in certain positions. Over time your spine starts adapting to those positions and loses the ability to move well, which increases your chance of injury during other activities (2). Aim to engage in 2 to 4 minutes of movement ideally every 30 minutes to an hour to break up your day and move your body. We were not built to sit in front of a screen all day long. Our bodies and brains work better with regular movement (3). Getting up every 30 minutes is not always realistic especially when we get “in the zone” but try to avoid long stretches of sitting even if that involves standing to briefly stretch and sitting back down.
1. Rafiei H, Omidian K, Myette-Côté É, Little JP. Metabolic Effect of Breaking Up Prolonged Sitting with Stair Climbing Exercise Snacks. Med Sci Sports Exerc. 2021;53(1):150-158. doi:10.1249/MSS.0000000000002431
2. Pham V. Sit up straight: Futureproof your body against chronic pain with 12 simple movements. Scribner; 2022.
3. Wendy Suzuki: The brain-changing benefits of exercise | TED.
Youtube.com Web site. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BHY0FxzoKZE. Updated 2018.
Original source can be found here.
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