Sarah's Health Notes: Sit less, move more with ‘snacktivities’
Being physically active is vital for health: body, mind, spirit. I know you know, but just forgive me repeating that it can reduce the risk of developing illnesses including heart disease, cancer (see News Flash below), type-2 diabetes and can improve your mood (I wrote about that here). Not to mention helping us all look better. As one doctor I worked with said, ‘if exercise was a drug, it would be a blockbuster prescribed to everyone’.
But – and for many people it’s a big BUT – packing exercise into a concentrated 30-minute session five days a week can be difficult to fit in. Hoorah then for the concept of ‘Snacktivity’, which the University of Birmingham is pioneering in a new study of this ‘novel approach’, as they term it.
Snacktivities are ‘short snacks of physical activity throughout the day, lasting between two and five minutes’, according to the information sheet. ‘Activity snacks are designed to fit easily into daily life, e.g. using the stairs instead of a lift, taking an extra short walk and doing leg raises when watching the TV.’ Participants were given a Fitbit watch for the duration of the 12-month trial, plus access to the Snacktivity SnackApp for mobile phones, developed by Loughborough University. (The app links to the Fitbit Versa series of smartwatches.)
Funnily enough, before I read about this new trial I’d written a feature on exercise snacks for our new book (due out next year BTW) because I’ve always been a fan.
8 ideas for snacktivities:
1. While the kettle’s boiling (or waiting for a bus/train):
rise up and down on your tiptoes 10 times
repeat with arms above your head, fingertips pointing to the ceiling
do 10 squats: (I also do these while I’m styling my hair with a hot air brush – you have to hold it in place for a bit, which is boring, so doing toe raisers and squats makes the process go more quickly)
2. While you’re on the phone: (probably not Facetime):
Walk up and down
Do shoulder rolls: 3-5 forward, same back
3. Stand on one leg for ten seconds, then swop to the other; if you’re really ambitious try closing your eyes
4. March up and down on the spot
5. Roll down slowly and gently from a standing position, feet hip width apart, and try to touch your toes, or at least the air above them; roll up slowly again
6. Put on your favourite dance music and throw yourself around for a few minutes
7. Do some stretches: chiropractor Dominic Cheetham at Sloane Square Chiropractic has kept me in good fettle despite a scoliosis for 16+ years. See him and colleague Dan Hughes demo-ing here
8. Exercise your ‘corset’ muscle whenever you remember: a key tenet of Pilates is to focus on strengthening the transverse abdominis muscle in your lower belly, which is vital to keep your back and core healthy and strong. Pulling it in whenever you remember also helps give a flatter tummy.
NEWS FLASH
Lastly, I wanted to mention a bit of medical news about exercise: an important new study about exercise for patients who’d had chemo for colon cancer, published this week in the New England Journal of Medicine, showed that ‘a three-year structured exercise program initiated soon after adjuvant chemotherapy for colon cancer resulted in significantly longer disease-free survival and findings consistent with longer overall survival’.
