The importance of movement and moving often.

How many of you hear the word movement and actually hear exercise instead? I imagine quite a few.

And how many of you feel guilty if you don’t ‘exercise’ daily? I’m guessing 90% of you? 

Now - if I ask you about exercise - how many of you does that thought conjure up an image of what has become an acceptable form of ‘torture’? Gruelling workouts until you feel sick, complete exhaustion, muscle failure, endless burpees and HIIT classes? Rather than a happy occasion that you look forward to?

Then if I ask - why do you move? How many of you would say to lose weight? To look good on holiday? To be attractive? To get fit? All valid reasons - but how many of you would say - to help improve my mental and physical health for the long term? To stabilise my spine? To keep the functional movements that my body was designed to do? To keep my mobility so I don’t need help when I’m 90? To give me LIFE?

Movement is life.

Movement is quite literally life. We were literally born to move. And in that same vein, the opposite also exists. It has been proven in studies that the more we sit, the earlier we will die. What is the the opposite of movement - stillness - the ultimate stillness is death. It sounds extreme - but in nature, everything moves - an if its not moving it’s probably because it’s dead. Apply this to life. Movement as I said is life. Lack of movement is death.

Now lets translate this in to modern life. A sedentary lifestyle and sitting for long periods of time will contribute to chronic health problems, shortened lifespans and of course contribute to a lower quality of life.

But what is scary is that our modern lifestyle has enabled us to move less and less. As tech and the world evolves - it at the same time seems to be on a mission to make everything so convenient that we simply don’t need to move.  

You can practically get everything you need without even moving your butt from your seat - jump simply a case of swipe and click. 

You certainly don’t need to leave home in a day should you not wish - which terrifies me as this is a reality for a lot of people and there are so many benefits to getting outside in nature, in natural light and also letting the sun kiss your skin - but I’ll save that for another post. 

Movement is health.

Without realising it, we are contributing to moving our bodies towards chronic illness merely by not paying attention and bringing awareness to our lack of movement. So much so that physical inactivity is now identified by the WHO (World Health Organisation) as an independent risk factor to causing chronic disease and it is now the fourth biggest cause of premature death globally.

So movement as it’s basic level is important for health and as we know health is wealth.

But if you think about your daily routine, how much of it would actually involve movement and physical activity (intentional or unintentional)?

Then if I asked you how often do you consciously think about your movement? Would you be able to answer often?

For instance - when you run - do you think about your hip movement being independent from your pelvis?

Do you think about how you can unload your knees?

Do you think intentionally about the movement you are doing? Where your body is in space, what muscles are activating and what muscles you actually NEED to be activating?

I suspect the likely answer would be that you never or very rarely think about this. As a result when we are unconscious in our action - sometimes it can be the action that contributes to our ailments. And if that action is repeated over and over - it can very often lead to imbalances which over time can lead to duh duh duh...injury.

Movement is healing.

On the subject of injury I just want to briefly touch on this to add to the poignancy of incorporating movement into our daily lives.

How many of you have had some kind of pain and as a result - thought - I’d better stop what I’m doing - e.g. I’ve got a terribly bad back - I’ll just go to bed rather than work on strengthening my core container and resetting my posture?

We’ve all been there - and of course, pain is debilitating. But movement is medicine. When we injure ourselves - we need to move. That is how the body heals most efficiently. We all think - oh, I need to feel better to move but in reality we need to move in order to feel better.

Get away from being an active couch potato.

I came across this phrase when researching and thought it was brilliant. It also makes total sense. So the term couch potato is often associated with lazy people - but in this context - it is to allude to people who do their daily exercise ‘quota’ - a quick whip in the gym - but for the remaining 14/16 hours are sedentary. 

I’ve heard it myself - people think that if they’ve been for a run or been to the gym, that counts as their pass to health for that day - and they can then be lazy for the rest of it - but unfortunately our body doesn’t work like that. The fact you’ve done one hour of exercise does not negate for the fact that you have then sat down or remained relatively sedentary for the rest of the day. 

It might be a case that you need to reframe your relationship to movement and exercise. Rethinking exercise as a part of movement but it’s not the only movement our body needs and craves. Our body LOVES movement - so it’s important we give it that opportunity to move.

That is why it is so important to remember to move and move often.

How often should I be moving?

Studies have shown that there is a correlation not only to the time you cumulatively spend sitting or sedentary, but also the length of time you spend still at one time and the risk of early death of any cause.

Simply put - the longer you spend sitting down, the more likely you are to die young. Scary to hear I know, but the best thing about this is - it is fixable!

The studies show that those who spend 30 minutes or less sitting down have the lowest risk of early death. In fact - if you sit for more than 13 hours a day - you are 200% greater risk of death than those who sit for 11 hours a day or less. But when it comes to looking at duration - those who sit for 30 minutes or less had a 55% lower risk of premature death. 

I think these numbers are significant and also important to share because it puts the whole time frame and length of time in one sitting into perspective a little more and gives you an understanding of the impact it can have. 

If you regularly sit for 90 minutes or more in a time frame - you are 200% more likely to die early than those who sit for less than 90 minutes at one time.

And lastly - those who sit for more than 30 minutes at a time, for a combined period of 12.5 hours or more across the course of a day are the highest risk.

Take that combination and apply it to the world of modern work and life - and it’s not only quite terrifying but pretty clear that a good percentage of people fall into this bracket and need to really look to improve their movement habits.

So how can I get more movement into my day?

Think about the micro-choices that you can make to turn these everyday choices into habits - improving your physical life daily. 

As we can see - it’s important to make sure we don’t sit for extended periods of time. Ideally you need to be up and moving every 30 minutes. Findings show that this simple behaviour change could be a golden ticket to reducing the risk of premature death. 

Here are a few ways to help you on your way to increased movement:

• Set a reminder or timer - a little like a Pomodoro timer - where you do a short stint of undisturbed work - why not try to use a timer to tie your work stint in with 

• Sit on the floor - this might not be practical for all of you, but if you do work from home it’s a great one because our body is great at telling us when we should be moving - so if you’re on the floor and in an uncomfortable position for too long - you’ll need to move to change position.

• Get a standing desk - you can then alternate between sitting and standing throughout your day or going a step further is to get a walking desk! It must be noted that there isn’t much proven benefit to standing over sitting - it is simply the change in position. So be sure not to then just stand up for prolonged periods of time either. 

• Take the stairs rather than the lift or elevator - this is a super easy switch to move more - I now see an elevator and beeline for the empty steps! Think of it as a game. How quickly and smoothly can you climb them? 

Or if you can only take an elevator - why not walk up it rather than just stand waiting to get to the top.

• Carry groceries rather than relying on a trolley to push them.

• Walk back from the shop with your bags of groceries to get your body used to carrying - something it was designed to do.

• Make a cup of tea for someone else rather than letting them make it for you.

• Have a small glass - so you constantly need to get up to refill it.

• Where can you swap transport for movement - e.g. walking or cycling rather than getting the bus, train or jumping in the car. Yes it might take a little more time but also think of the benefit it’s giving - again - reframe that relationship. You’re getting more bang for your buck - moving whilst getting to where you need to go. 

• Set yourself a little challenge - see over the course of a day/a week how many different types and ways you can swap movement in to your life where it might not have been before - e.g. when making a cup of tea- instead of standing and waiting - do some balancing, circling, twisting. When cleaning your teeth - squat. Doing some roll downs in the shower. Doing housework e.g. the dishes rather than putting it all in a dishwasher. There are endless opportunities - it just depends on how creative you want to be. So get your moving cap on and see what you can come up with.

Another point to note is to try and see how you can move in a variety of ways. 

We were not designed to move just in one plane of motion (e.g. running, cycling, walking and rowing for instance all move in the same motion plane - forwards and backwards.) Make sure you rotate, move in circles and spirals - move your body in every place it can go. It’ll thank you for it!

Conclusion of why movement is important to incorporate often in our daily lives.

In summary as to why movement is so important, well  to me it’s pretty obvious - it gives us life. That’s enough of a reason for me to make sure I’m moving in many different ways, many times a day. We’re designed as humans to move, so let’s support our bodies by giving it the movement it was designed to do rather than outsourcing to an app. In short - get more human and move accordingly.

So I challenge you to get moving and let me know how you get on. If you want to learn to understand more about your body and how best to move it, I’d love you to get in touch. Together we will work to improve strength and mobility and adaptability as well as bringing other mental benefits.

I aim to inspire, empower and transform your relationship with movement through education and providing you with the tools to help feel and ultimately live better.

If you don’t know where to begin, get in touch, I’d love to help.

Lots of love,

T xx