We're not talking about food or sleep here!
Every week, it seems, scientists add another piece of data to the mountain of heart disease risk factors that we can control—and explain how and why we can do so.
We'll take any advice we can get, especially since heart disease is the leading cause of death in the United States. According to the latest data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, heart disease is responsible for almost one out of every four fatalities in the United States, which means someone dies of heart disease every 36 seconds.
We recently discovered a little more about keeping our hearts healthy and lowering our risk of heart disease. You don't need to go to the gym every day or run a half-marathon to keep your heart healthy, according to a recent study published in the Journal of the American Heart Association. Routine daily tasks that incorporate a small amount of activity can pile up quickly. Compared to older women who exercised for two hours per day, those who moved for four hours per day had a 43 percent lower risk of heart disease and a 30 percent lower risk of stroke, even when completing low-intensity "workouts" like gardening, walking, stretching, and cleaning. The risk of dying from cardiovascular disease was also 62 percent lower in the four-hour-per-day group.
The researchers utilized accelerometers to track the physical activity of almost 5,400 women aged 63 to 97 to come to this result. These women had not been diagnosed with heart disease when the study began, but they volunteered to wear the activity tracker for seven days so that the researchers could see how much time they spent moving (or not) during the day. Getting in a car, standing, walking around the house, running, gardening, cooking, using the stairs, or light stretching were all examples of movement.
According to the researchers, every extra minute matters, so don't be afraid to commit to an entire group fitness class or a 10K race at first. While the findings don't discount the benefits of more structured types of exercise, such as a 60-minute bike ride or a HIIT class, you don't have to book a sweat sesh to reap some heart-healthy benefits. This study demonstrates that staying active and moving daily (even if it's just walking your dog around the block or removing weeds in your garden) can be beneficial.
Aside from lowering the risk of heart disease, exercise has many other advantages, including weight loss, reduced stress, and increased mood. And performing all of the above in little bits throughout the day makes hitting the four-hour milestone seem much more achievable. Furthermore, small exercise "nuggets" can boost blood sugar, metabolism, and other factors compared to sitting for lengthy periods.
It's simple to keep track of your daily tally of these more lifestyle-y "workouts" like walking, shopping, gardening, and so on using a wearable fitness tracker or an activity-tracking app. Keep in mind that if four hours is out of your current range, every minute counts—even if you don't see a difference on the scale. (In case you didn't know, another study indicated that physical activity, not weight loss, is the most effective way to lower health risks.)
It's also vital to remember that what you have on your plate has a significant impact.