How Bathroom Trips Save Lives
As we return from summer getaways and increased active time outdoors under the sun ("active" does not mean actively sipping your Mai Tai at the beach!), with likely increased time indoors back at school, work and home, chances are you will become more sedentary and sit more.
Before you worry that this is another "sitting kills" polemic (there's no need; sitting does kill), it is not. Actually, the reason I'm writing is particularly because I know that as you return to work and school, chances are you won't be investing in a standing desk or monitoring an activity tracker to be sure you're getting enough daily steps. I don't mean to be sardonic; I just don't think the chances are high. Firstly, both involve spending money -- sometimes quite a bit of money. And secondly, both add an additional chore.
Instead, I have a cost-free solution, from both monetary and mental investment perspectives: Get up and walk for two minutes every hour. That prescription, in fact, seems to even beat standing at your desk when it comes to lowering premature death risk.
That's right: Forget about logging 10,000 steps (for now, at least), or buying and assembling a standing desk, not to mention then having to also reconfigure your entire work space. No, no, no -- neither are necessarily simple enough or easy enough to get you to change.
Just before summer this year, researchers published findings in the Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology that indicate two minutes of light-intensity "exercise" (i.e. walking) per hour lowered risk of early death by 33 percent. Did you get that? Two minutes of walking decreases death risk by 33 percent! That is huge, and I would take that trade-off any day.
The study wasn't small, either -- it was three years long and measured 3,200 participants. No study is perfect, but this is fairly reliable research, and it specifically pitted longer bouts of low-intensity activity, like standing, against light-intensity exercise, like walking.
Simply stated, walking for just two minutes outperformed longer periods of standing. Moving once again beats stillness. I am not surprised. This is a very small investment with a very large return, and requires nothing more than setting a recurring reminder on your cellphone or computer to get the job done.
As a matter of fact, if you're drinking enough water, you're likely getting up and walking two minutes every hour already ... to the bathroom and back. How's that for a natural, built-in timer -- and killing two birds with one stone? So keep up the H20, and the rest will flow. (See what I just did there?)
And please keep in mind, this is not a replacement for regular moderate to vigorous exercise. It's more of a reminder to, you know, move or risk dying.
Jeff Halevy is a Contributing Fitness Expert for NBC's "TODAY Show," and an internationally-recognized authority on behavioral health, nutrition and exercise science. His clients range from Hollywood and Wall Street "royalty" to true international royalty. After surviving the removal of a pear-sized tumor and a substance abuse problem, Halevy turned his life around, founding New York City private gym Halevy Life -- the only gym on earth to guarantee fitness results with a money-back guarantee -- and starring in the healthy lifestyle TV show "Workout From Within With Jeff Halevy," now in its third season, which airs nationally and internationally on Z Living.
