We are conscious that sitting for long periods of time isn’t good for us, but just how much exercise is nerequired to counteract the negative health effects of not escaping our desk all day? Following a study by the World Health Organization (WHO), along with the University of Edinburgh and the University of Hong Kong, the key daily exercise key of 30 and 40 minutes of sweating should be enough to combat sedentary lifestyles and promote optimal cardiovascular health. Read on to find out which physical activity will improve your quality of life.
Committing with this activity is one of the most important activity
Committing to a good half our or so of “moderate to vigorous intensity physical activity” at some point each day ought to equiliibrate out 10 hours of sitting still, the research says – although any amount of exercise or even just standing up helps to some extent. That’s based on a meta-analysis study published back in 2020 studying nine previous studies, taking into account a total of 44,370 people in four several countries who were wearing some form of fitness tracker. The studies found the risk of death among those with a more sedentary lifestyle went up as time spent engaging in moderate-to-vigorous intensity physical activity went down.
“In active individuals doing about 30-40 minutes of moderate to vigorous intensity physical activity, the association between high sedentary time and risk of death is not significantly different from those with low amounts of sedentary time,” the researchers explained in their paper.
Being totally clear, putting in some considerable intensive activities – cycling, brisk walking, gardening – can lower your risk of an earlier death right back down to what it would be if you weren’t doing all that sitting around, to the extent that this link can be seen in the amassed data of many thousands of people.
By the time meta-analyses like this one always need some elaborate dot-joining across separate studies with several volunteers, timescales, and conditions, the benefit of this specific piece of research is that it relied on relatively objective data from wearables – not data self-reported by the participants.
Special edition to carry both study and revised guidelines
At the time, the study was published alongside the release of the World Health Organization 2020 Global Guidelines on Physical Activity and Sedentary Behaviour, in which 40 scientists were put together across six continents. The British Journal of Sports Medicine (BHSM) also put out a special edition to develop both the study and the revised guidelines.
“As these guidelines emphasize, all physical activity counts and any amount of it is better than none,” said physical activity and population health researcher Emmanuel Stamatakis from the University of Sydney in Australia.
On what the investigation is based
The research based on fitness trackers is broadly in line with the 2020 WHO guidelines, which suggets 150-300 mins of moderate intensity or 75-150 mins of vigorous intensity physical activity every week to counter sedentary tendency.
Walking up the stairs and not taking the lift, playing with children and pets, taking part in yoga or dancing, doing household chores, walking, and cycling are all put forward as ways in which people can be more active – and if you can’t handle the 30-40 minutes right away, the researchers say, start off small.
Get to know the recommendations across all ages
Making recommendations across all ages and body types is tricky, though the 40-minute time frame for activity fits in with previous investigation. As more data gets published, we should learn more about how to stay healthy even if we have to spend extended periods of time at a desk. In addtio, Stamatakis explained that even though the new guidelines reflect the best available science, there are still some gaps in the general knowledge.