What is the ideal routine to adopt every day to stay healthy? This is the question answered by researchers at Swinburne University of Technology in Australia. And here are their conclusions!
What is the daily program to adopt to increase your health capital? A team of scientists from Swinburne University of Technology in Australia provides a detailed answer to this question.
Define the schedule for an optimal “health” day
For this work, the researchers analyzed the behavior of more than 2,000 participants over a full day, in detail, as Christian Brakenridge from the Center for Urban Transitions (Swinburne University) explains, “this study encompasses a wide range of health markers and studies them over 24 hours, in order to associate them with overall optimal health“.
The goal: determine the right proportion of time spent sitting, standing, sleeping and being physically active to stay healthy.
Thus, scientists have noticed that spending more time being physically active has more positive effects on the blood sugar levels of people with diabetes than on that of healthy volunteers. But that's not all.
On the menu, 4 hours of physical activity and 8 hours of sleep
Experts were also able to determine that for optimal health, a person's ideal day should include more than four hours of physical activity involving different types of physical activities, ranging from light intensity to vigorous, moderate activity as well.
Light physical activity involves, for example, standing to prepare a meal. Moderate activity can be a brisk walk during the day and intense physical activity, playing a sport.
Concerning sleep, this must be at least eight hours per night and standing, five hours per day.
Replace one activity with another… provided you make the right choices
To go further, scientists have also studied the impact of replacing one activity with another. “Sleep can harm health if it replaces exercise time, but beneficial if it replaces sedentary behavior” explained Professor Brakenridge.
Finally, he recommends remaining realistic about a sedentary lifestyle. “We can ask people to exercise more, but it is not possible to have 10 hours of exercise and zero hours of sedentary behavior in the day.” he recalls. The researcher therefore advises adapting these recommendations to your own person and recommends choosing the physical activity that you will enjoy.
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