Human beings were made to move.  A big part of feeling and being really healthy is being able to move easily and joyfully.  We love it when we are moving and being active, and when we have the energy to do so.  When our movement is restricted we feel frustrated, bored, anxious and even depressed.  Yet, the current way of life around the world is increasingly sedentary both at work, at home, and at play.  Now a continual flow of research is indicting our lack of movement as one of our biggest, if not the biggest, health risk we face.

A new study from Australia, (http://www.healthday.com/Article.asp?AID=634816)

released in advance of it’s publication in the journal Circulation, studied 8,800 men and women over six years.  "This research provides another clear link between too much sitting and death from disease," said lead researcher David Dunstan, head of the Physical Activity Laboratory at the Baker IDI Heart and Diabetes Institute in Victoria.  The study looked at TV watching time and actually concluded that every hour of daily TV watching increased the risk of dying from any cause by 11 percent. (The average Australian and American watches television four hours a day.) The good news is research has shown that moving the muscles frequently throughout the day is one of the most effective ways of managing weight and protecting against disease, Dunstan added.

"We tend to underestimate the value of incidental, non-sweaty activity throughout the day when we are either not sleeping or exercising -- the more you move, the greater the benefits for health." he noted. Dunstan pointed out that while obesity can add to these problems, even normal-weight people can have increases in blood sugar and cholesterol if they sit too much.

The Australian study supports the research of Dr. James Levine at the Mayo Clinic.  In his book Move a Little, Lose a Lot, he points to evidence that it is our sedentary lifestyles and workstyles that make a greater contribution to ill health and obesity than our diets do.

For those who say “I hate to exercise!”, or “I just don’t have time!”,  the solution may be to build more movement into their lives throughout the day.  Consciously monitoring how active or sedentary we are can make a huge difference.  This also gets around the tremendous barrier of needing to find a one to two hour block of precious time to go somewhere and “exercise”.  Being sedentary through the day and then going for run or workout may still not provide enough activity for health or for weight loss.

Instead of wellness programs and wellness coaching efforts always emphasizing exercise classes and finding time to “workout”, why not develop more strategies for increasing activity throughout the day?  Look at how a workplace can become more active through promoting the use of stairs instead of elevators, through encouraging employees to get up and talk to colleagues instead of sending e-mails to someone fifty feet away, etc.  We need to re-think schools, offices, factories, communities and even households.

Here are some quick tips and strategies for building more movement into your life:

• Whenever possible take your phone calls on your feet.  As soon as the phone rings, use it as a cue to get up and stand or walk around as you talk.
• Never sit longer than 45 minutes at a time.  Your body shifts into a “hibernative” sort of state when you sit too long and metabolism slows.
• Consciously reverse your movement strategy.  Instead of “saving steps”, think of how you can build more of them in.  Park farther away, not as close as possible.
• Some companies have “walking meetings” and wear little tags that say so in order not to be interrupted.
• Some companies have set up walking courses within buildings and encourage employees to use them throughout the day.
• A company I did training at outside of Chicago designed their new campus so employees would have to walk further to get to the cafeteria, locating it at a corner of the campus instead of in the middle.
• Treadmill work stations are available that allow for complete use of a computer while slowly walking.  Ideal for sedentary jobs such as operations or security surveillance.
• Consciously plan for each weekend to include both fun and household work that is physically active.
• Create social experiences with friends that include active fun.
• Whenever possible run your errands by bicycle.
• Have fun using online resources to map and measure your walks, runs, bike rides and more.  (e.g. www.mapmywalk.com)
• Go take a hike!

Michael Arloski, Ph.D., PCC