A day of sitting requires how much exercise
We all know that sitting down for long periods of time is bad for our health, but how much exercise is actually required to offset this harm?
According to research, working up a sweat for 30 to 40 minutes each day should be sufficient.
According to research, up to 40 minutes of “moderate to vigorous intensity physical activity” each day is roughly the right amount to counterbalance 10 hours of inactivity. However, any amount of exercise, or even simply standing up, is beneficial to some extent.
Meta Analysis Study
That is based on a meta-analysis study from 2020 that examined nine earlier studies and involved 44,370 individuals wearing fitness trackers in four different countries.
The analysis revealed that as time spent engaging in moderate-to-vigorous physical activity decreased, the risk of death increased among those who led a more sedentary lifestyle.
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The researchers wrote in their paper, In active individuals doing approximately 30–40 minutes of moderate to vigorous intensity physical activity, the association between high sedentary time and risk of death is not significantly different from that in individuals with low amounts of sedentary time.
In other words, engaging in moderately demanding activities like cycling, brisk walking, or gardening can reduce your risk of dying sooner to the level it would be if you weren’t spending so much time sitting around. In fact, thousands of people’s data have been gathered to show this connection.
British Journal of Sports Medicine (BHSM)
The advantage of this particular piece of research is that it relied on relatively objective data from wearables – not data self-reported by the participants – whereas meta-analyses like this one always require some elaborate dot-joining across different studies with different volunteers, timescales, and conditions.
The study was released at the same time as the 2020 Global Guidelines on Physical Activity and Sedentary Behavior, which were developed by 40 scientists from six continents. Additionally, a special edition of the British Journal of Sports Medicine (BHSM) was published that included both the study and the updated recommendations.
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According to Australian researcher Emmanuel Stamatakis, who studies physical activity and population health, “as these guidelines emphasize, all physical activity counts and any amount is better than none.”
“People can still safeguard their health and counteract the negative effects of inactivity.”
Guidelines
The 2020 WHO guidelines, which suggest 150–300 minutes per week of moderate intensity or 75–150 minutes per week of vigorous intensity physical activity to combat sedentary behaviour, broadly corroborate the findings of the fitness tracker research.
Walking up the stairs rather than using the elevator, playing with kids and pets, practising yoga or dancing, doing household chores, walking, and cycling are all suggested as ways for people to become more active. If you find it difficult to commit to 30 to 40 minutes of activity at once, the researchers advise starting small.
It can be challenging to make recommendations that apply to people of all ages and body types, but the 40-minute recommendation for activity is consistent with prior studies. We should learn more about how to maintain our health even if we must sit at a desk for extended periods of time as more data is published.
“There are still some gaps in our knowledge, even though the new guidelines reflect the best science currently available,” said Stamatakis.
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For instance, we still don’t know exactly where the threshold for “too much sitting” is. However, since research in this area moves quickly, we should have answers in a few years.
