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Why physical activity so important to all of us

“If exercise could be packaged into a pill, it would be the single most widely, prescribed and beneficial medicine in the nation.” [1]

Dr Butler said this in 1978 when he was the director of the National Institute of Aging. The data accumulated since then has proven him right over and over again. Based on the same evidence and data, I would now adapt his statement to say “if physical activity could be packaged into a pill, it would be the best medicine for people to live longer, healthier and disease-free lives.”

This is not something new. Plato in 400 BC said, “In order for man to succeed in life, God provided two means, education and physical activity. Lack of activity destroys the good condition of every human being, while movement and methodical physical exercise can save it and preserve it.”

The even older Caraka Samhita said, “Physical exercise brings about lightness, ability to work, stability, resistance to discomfort and alleviation of impurities (dosas). It stimulates the power of digestion.”

Physical activity (PA) is the single most important part of our atmasvasth guide that I wrote and spoke about last week, to live long, healthy. It encompasses everything from yoga to dancing to walking, to running to tai-chi, to going to the gym…to just being more active and sitting less.

Unfortunately, because of the need to commercially “sell” physical activity at a price, it has been linked in the popular media to both, weight loss and ripped bodies, both of which are fine if they occur as a side-effect of moving regularly every day, but are not the end-goal of being active. This focus on toned and svelte bodies with six-packs and four-packs, also tends to put off a lot of people who intuitively believe and know that however much they run or go to the gym, they are never going to be able to achieve that ideal body they see on television or YouTube.

For example, one of the reasons people don’t run in India is because of its association with marathon racing. You don’t have to run races to run for health, but that message doesn’t really get through. Whatever the reason may be, studies have shown that almost 50{e4f787673fbda589a16c4acddca5ba6fa1cbf0bc0eb53f36e5f8309f6ee846cf} of adult Indians do not indulge in any form of relevant leisure time physical activity [2], which I think is a gross underestimation.

PA is much much more than just looking like a model or wanting people to tell you how good or thin you look. It is about living long, healthy — a concept that really has nothing to do with with having big biceps and quads.

Benefits of any type of PA [3]:

1. Better sleep.

2. Prevention or minimization of excessive weight gain in adults, maintenance of weight within a healthy range and prevention of obesity.

3. Reduction in the risk of dementia and cognitive decline.

4. Reduction in the risk of colon and breast cancer and likely cancers of the urinary bladder, uterus lining, esophagus, kidney, lung and stomach.

5. Reduction in the development of a new chronic condition, reduction in the risk of progression of a condition, if already present and improvement of physical function and quality of life. These include osteoarthritis, hypertension and type 2 diabetes, among others.

6. Reduction in cardiovascular incidence and mortality (heart attacks, stroke) and reduction in the incidence of hypertension and diabetes.

7. Improvement in all-cause mortality.

8. Reduction in the incidence of falls and falls-related injuries.

Today’s write up is really just about moving v/s not moving (in short, physical activity versus no physical activity). It doesn’t matter what kind of PA you indulge in as long as you are active, you will do better than if you just sit and do nothing as seen in the centre of the figure below.

Most guidelines recommend at least 150-300 minutes of moderate activity per week, which is equivalent to 30-60 minutes of reasonably brisk walking, 5 times per week. However, if you see the red circle in the centre graph, the biggest improvement in longevity is just between moving and not-moving, between being sedentary versus just getting up and doing ‘something’. In fact, even just 15 minutes of walking or 5-10 minutes of running per day increases your lifespan by almost 3 years compared to those who ”do nothing”. [4]

Simply put, the more active you are, the longer you live, as long as the PA is leisure time activity and not work-related [5]. As you also see in the graph, there is no significant health benefit beyond 300 minutes of moderate physical activity per week, though there is no harm as well, if being more active makes you feel good.

What does this mean for you and I? Simply ‘moving’ and being physically active will help us live longer and healthier as compared to being sedentary and physically inactive. And, it is never too late to start. Even if you have been a couch-potato all your life, your health and lifespan automatically start improving from the day you start moving [6].

PA is better than any pill or diet or supplement, but it needs some effort and motivation, there are no free lunches when it comes to managing our health.

So, which physical activity is the best? Walking? Running? Yoga? Going to the gym? Strength training? Pilates? Let’s address this issue another day, another time, but the short answer is — it doesn’t matter, as long as you do “something” every day.

In our atmasvasth quest to live long, healthy, to have an increased healthspan and lifespan, perhaps the single most important point in the list that I shared last week remains ‘moving’ or physical activity.

Footnotes

1. Butler RN. Public Interest Report No. 23: Exercise, the Neglected Therapy. Int J Aging Hum Dev. 1978 Mar;8(2):193–5.

2. Podder V, et al. Physical Activity Patterns in India Stratified by Zones, Age, Region, BMI and Implications for COVID-19: A Nationwide Study. Ann Neurosci. 2020 Jul;27(3-4):193-203.

3. 2018 Physical Activity Guidelines Advisory Committee. 2018 Physical Activity Guidelines Advisory Committee Scientific Report. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2018.

4. Wen CP et al. Minimal amount of exercise to prolong life: to walk, to run, or just mix it up? J Am Coll Cardiol. 2014 Aug 5;64(5):482-4

5. Pearce M et al. Is occupational physical activity associated with mortality in UK Biobank? Int J Behav Nutr Phys Act. 2021 Jul 27;18(1):102

6. Saint-Maurice PF et al. Association of Leisure-Time Physical Activity Across the Adult Life Course With All-Cause and Cause-Specific Mortality. JAMA Netw Open. 2019 Mar 1;2(3):e190355



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Views expressed above are the author’s own.



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Memorization and practice are still important to learning

Instead of building college students memorize a bunch of useless information, we ought to support them consider like experts and historians. This is most effective accomplished by an inquiry-dependent strategy that allows students to tutorial their individual finding out process.

Does this reasoning make feeling to you?

It likely does if you have recently attended a faculty of instruction exactly where instructors are properly trained. This is also what lecturers are often informed at their expert progress classes.

The challenge is that this approach is erroneous. Not just completely wrong by a small, but by a large amount. Irrespective of boasting to be centered on reliable evidence, the true science of mastering details in the opposite route.

In actuality, college students find out finest when they are immersed in a content material-abundant discovering surroundings that builds up their qualifications knowledge. Exercise is also a critical element of assisting pupils grasp new abilities. Discovering is tough do the job and for this rationale on your own it is crucial for academics, not learners, to set the path in the classroom.

Cognitive psychologist Dr. Daniel Willingham outlines a number of essential research conclusions in the recently released 2nd version of his typical e-book, “Why Don’t College students Like Faculty?”

1st, history know-how is essential to looking through comprehension. You are much a lot more most likely to understand a e book or write-up if you now know one thing about the subject at hand. If there are as well numerous unfamiliar words or ideas, you probably won’t have an understanding of it. Naturally, the much more you know about a subject matter, the simpler it becomes to master additional.

Next, it makes perception for learners to practice their multiplication tables and to memorize the spelling of typically used words. Why? Due to the fact lack of room in doing work memory is the key bottleneck in learning. For illustration, pupils who do not know their math information come across it extremely tough to remedy a lot more sophisticated problems since they conclude up wasting useful mental capacity on anything that should really be automatic.

While most instruction professors and lots of academic consultants usually deride repetitive follow as “drill and destroy,” the point is that this procedure gives the foundation for deeper discovering. We do our brains a important favour when we dedicate primary information and abilities to memory. It may not be incredibly enjoyable to observe performing the exact point around and around, but it pays off in the extended-time period.

The fact is that it requires researchers and historians quite a few many years of analyze and practice before they become industry experts in their fields. There is no this sort of matter as a generalized “expert way of thinking” that transfers seamlessly across topic regions. Knowledge is a little something that will come with lots of many years of observe, and it is unrealistic to expect learners to acquire know-how in a brief period of time.

The variance amongst chess industry experts and chess novices is an illustrative instance. As Willingham explains, “it appears that much of the change amid the world’s ideal chess players is not their capacity to cause about the activity or to approach the greatest shift relatively, it is their memory for activity positions.”

Merely put, chess industry experts have fully commited a huge selection of video game positions to memory, and this frees up room to assume about a profitable system in the sport they are enjoying. Genuine know-how in chess will come from comprehensive familiarity with a wide range of board positions.

In truth, the most effective chess players have about 50,000 board positions in their prolonged-expression reminiscences. This is why expert gamers continue being proficient in blitz tournaments where activity time is substantially minimized. Mainly because of the sheer quantity of board positions dedicated to memory, pro players can make decisions in fractions of a 2nd although novices are pressured to waste worthwhile time wondering through primary moves.

So, lecturers should commit additional time supplying direct instruction about important knowledge and techniques and significantly less time trying to get learners to consider like experts and historians. Inquiry finding out has its spot when learners have a fair sum of expertise about a subject, but it is almost worthless at encouraging college students discover about brand name new concepts.

Memorizing specifics even now has an significant place in faculties. So does practising competencies. The science of training and studying is very distinct about what successful instruction appears like.

Our learners are entitled to the very best instruction we can give them. Let’s make absolutely sure we present it.