Gema García Marcos

Updated Monday, January 29, 2024-10:45

The topic brings them up. It could be said that the 'activity' to which we dedicate more hours in the day after sleeping (or even the same or more)

can make us sick and shorten our life expectancy

.

Obviously, we are not talking about smoking, but about something as widespread and accepted as

spending the day sitting

, an obligation/custom that, according to estimates, has become the cause of

30 million deaths annually

(5.5% of the total).

To know more

Welfare.

What is better for your health: running or walking?

  • Editor: GEMA GARCÍA MARCOS

What is better for your health: running or walking?

The World Health Organization (WHO) has already warned about it, but it seems that the issue goes in one ear and does not come out the other. Sedentary lifestyle is a

global pandemic

from whose 'vaccine', despite getting us 'free' - in investment and possible negative side effects -, we 'run away' as if it were going to cause terrible mutations:

moving.

Thus, the WHO had to clarify its recommendations on exercise in the review published in November 2020. If the previous document established a minimum of 150 minutes of physical activity per week for adults between 18 and 64 years of age, the new one establishes It mentions an amount that ranges between

150 and 300 minutes per week

.

But the most interesting thing is that, aware that the general population's lack of interest in training, they value the so-called '

mini-pills' of exercise

that can be done during the day and whose duration, the WHO emphasizes,

is not what to exceed 10 minutes

so that they provide the desired benefits for our health.

The idea is simple. In an attempt to break down the supposed psychological barrier that playing sports can pose for some people, the WHO proposes "

accumulating movement throughout the day with different types of daily actions such as walking, taking the stairs instead of using the elevator, taking a walk the dog and even do household chores

," Juana Willumsen, technical officer of the WHO Physical Activity Unit, explained to ZEN.

This means, lowering the bar to ankle level, that everything counts. "The simple act of

getting up from our chair during our work day

to take short walks already brings us multiple benefits."

What's more, Willumsen stressed, "even those who go to the gym to try to compensate for a very sedentary lifestyle have to

increase their daily physical activity

(which activates that

prodigious calorie burner called

NEAT

)."

Which means that we 'wash' our

bad conscience of 'shrooms'

who spend eight hours a day (at least) with their butt glued to the chair with an hour at the gym three days a week or a long bike ride on Sundays It doesn't matter if we then take the elevator to go up a floor or even take the car to go buy bread at the corner store.

How many minutes of exercise should we do daily to compensate for the hours we spend sitting, then? Well, in addition to the WHO recommendations, in research carried out by experts from the Department of Sports Medicine at the Faculty of Sports Sciences in Oslo (Norway), published in November 2020, it would be best to perform between

30 and 40 minutes per day of physical activity

(between moderate and vigorous). In this way, they maintain, the negative impact that a sedentary lifestyle would have on our health would be significantly reduced.

As I said, the bar cannot be set any lower...