3 Benefits of increasing your movement

In this short blog I'm looking at the idea of having regular movement throughout the day and what benefits it can have. There's studies linking sedentary behavior to lower lifespan as well as various different health conditions and that is what I want to explore in this blog. ​

What I mean by regular movement is do you get up and move around throughout your day? Or do you sort of sit on whatever your commute is to work and then spend a lot of time sitting in the office and they maybe during lunch sitting somewhere else or maybe in fact it's working through your lunch to then come home and sit in front of a computer or a TV? 
Even if you do have slots of time that you do exercise within your day or your week, there's evidence that having that regular movement throughout your day is also really beneficial. This is where the idea of the 10,000 steps a day has come from, to actually get people moving more. 

So what are some of the benefits? 


1 Physical
The physical benefits are your physical health and there's studies that have linked lack of movement to cardiovascular disease, heart disease, strokes, various cancers, osteoporosis. So by moving more you're lowering your risk of those physical health conditions. 
The World Health Organization say 60 to 85 percent of the world population don't do enough movement ( Source ) and it's the fourth leading cause of mortality (  Source ). 
So simply doing a few more steps or whatever it might be, can help you physically. 

2 Mental
Then there's also mental benefits. As well as the physical health problems it's also linked to Alzheimer's and studies again have shown that there's thinning in the regions of your brain that are linked to memory function. ( Source )
So getting up and doing a bit of movement in your day also might help your memory and your recall. 
3 Emotional

If you've ever felt stressed out and just gone for a walk, perhaps you have seen and felt the benefits of the emotional changes within you. It can reduce stress, it will help enhance your mood and this is because it's decreasing your cortisol levels. 

Sometimes you can go for a walk, come back and you see things in a new perspective, a new light because your mood has been improved. 


So that’s three benefits for doing more movement throughout your day and just incorporating that in a way that you feel able to. Which benefit do you think is the most important for you?
Anna
Owner of Pura Vida Living
A company with the mission to keep wellbeing simple and accessible to everybody.

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