A Study of 140,000 People Says Walking This Much Per Week Adds Years to Your Life
Human beings are not sloths. “We need to move,” Harvard psychiatrist John Ratey has explained. “It’s only 10,000 years ago that we were hunter-gatherers and we moved anywhere from 10 to 14 miles a day.”
Which might sound kind of alarming to you.
While we all know that too much sitting around is horrible for both our mental and physical health, do you need to walk the equivalent of a half marathon every day to avoid the nasty health consequences of a sedentary lifestyle? If so, many would understandably throw up their hands in defeat and plotz back down on the couch for another episode of their favorite show.
Luckily, a growing body of science shows that while our ancestors may have all been dedicated athletes by necessity, we can achieve major gains in health with rather minor changes to our lifestyles.
Daily half marathons not required.
The blog for The Blue Zones, a recent book on well-being research, just highlighted one particularly convincing study on the lifestyles of no less than 140,000 people. The essential finding was that lowering your chance of a premature death was surprisingly achievable.
