The Two Minute Walk: Key to Longevity

You’ve read that right: the two minute walk can result in a longer life.

What’s the catch? You’ll need to be consistent and accumulate 30 minutes or more of moving time. That’s 15 up-and-about’s throughout the day and evening too. An hour of moving time is even better.

Your goal is to create the accepted 30-minute a day of exercise which as scientists have discovered can be beneficial even when taken in bite-sized bits of activity. 

A recent study found that “Those who moved more often, especially if they managed about an hour in total of physical activity over the course of the day, cut their mortality risk in half… .”

“And it did not matter how they accumulated those minutes. If people walked continuously for five minutes or longer, meaning in exercise bouts, they lowered their risk of dying young.

“But they gained the same benefit if they walked sporadically in short but repeated spurts, as long as they moved often.

“The message is that all physical activity counts,” says Dr. William Kraus, a professor at Duke University who conducted the study with researchers from the National Cancer Institute.

“The little things that people do every day,” like walking from their cars to the office or climbing a flight of stairs, “can and do add up and affect the risk for disease and death,” he says.”

“If you can’t go for a long walk,” he says, “a few short walks are likely to be just as good for you.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/28/well/move/walking-exercise-minutes-death-longevity.html?rref=collection%2Fcolumn%2Fphys-ed&action=click&contentCollection=move&region=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=2&pgtype=collection

The Two Minute Walk Taken Every 20 Minutes: More Health Benefits

What happens when the two-minute walking break is taken not only consistently but also in a regular pattern? Research shows there’s even more benefit if your efforts are timed, happening every 20 minutes. 

Taking a two-minute walk every 20 minutes re-sets the body’s mechanisms put on hold and under stress by the inactivity of sitting.  Positively impacted are: blood pressure and glucose levels; aching muscles and learning abilities. Lessened are risks for cardio-vascular disease, cancer, metabolic syndrome, and diabetes. 

Then there’s the added benefit: expending more calories as you move more. Consider: whether you’re at the office or at home: a 2 minute walkabout every half hour results in 59 extra calories expended and a 5 minute walkabout every half hour results in an 132 additional calories expended.

Experiencing muscle or joint aches and pains: moving often, taking breaks from sitting of even 30 seconds or one minute every 20 minutes impacts discomfort.

Then consider what happens when you engage in more activity every 20 minutes. Dan Buettner, author of The Blue Zones Solution: Eating and Living Like the World’s Healthiest People, found cultures around the world whose residents live the healthiest and longest are “nudged into physical activity (such as house work, yard work, kitchen work with no mechanized appliances) every 20 minutes, my team estimates. This activity not only burned 500 to 1,000 calories a day; it also kept their metabolisms humming at a high rate.”

Barbara and Kevin Kunz, Un-Sit Your Life

Doing reflexology is good for you — for reasons you never expected

Un-Sit Your Life

A new British study may help answer old questions about reflexology. Does the reflexologist receive as much benefit from reflexology practice as the client? Do reflexologists live longer? It may also raise a new question. Does self reflexology create results beyond those attributable to working the reflex areas of the hands and feet?

The study was about sitting time and fidgeting. It turns out that the positives and negatives of sitting are not as simple as counting time spent doing it. What one does while sitting is important too. And it’s here the questions about reflexology enter the picture.

According to the study, “Fidgeting is typically defined as involving small movements, especially of the hands and feet, often through nervousness, restlessness, or impatience. … The current results suggest that more complex movements of the hands and feet may be important to measure, in addition to level of physical activity (sitting time).”

The study found women who fidgeted more while sitting lived longer. Among the women in the low fidgeting group, sitting more than 7 hours a day was associated with an increased mortality risk of 30%. “Among women in the high fidgeting group, sitting for 5–6 hours/day … was associated with decreased mortality risk. … Fidgeting may reduce the risk of all-cause mortality associated with excessive sitting time.”

Previous research suggests why fidgeting may be beneficial. Fidgeting expends more calories than sitting still—118 calories an hour versus 80. Calorie consumption is linked to metabolism with more calories indicating more demand on metabolism. Research results showing sitting while reading or using a computer is less impactful on metabolism. It could be the benefit of intellectual stimulation while sitting.

So, where does reflexology fit into such concepts? Reflexology work whether applied to another or oneself includes complex hand movements of technique application. There’s mental mastery of techniques application appropriate to the specific part of the foot or hand and health concern. Then there’s assessment of what’s under thumb or fingers as one works as well as linking techniques in a coherent whole session.

The bottom line? Reflexology is good for you. Keep those hands moving.