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Why Our Sedentary Lives Are Aging Us Faster · Doctor Turned Health Coach

• 0:00
  Welcome to the doctor-turned-health-coach podcast. My name is Dr. Ashuri.
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  Welcome to another podcast episode today on this beautiful Monday morning.
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  I'm going for a walk, listening to the birds, getting some sunlight, getting some exercise.
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  And speaking of exercise, our modern society is designed in such a way,
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  it has to evolve in such a way that it's become rather sedentary, right? And why is that?
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  The reason is that the majority of the heavy lifting and heavy work has been
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  farmed out to machinery. So why is that important to you?
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  Over the past few decades, over the past several hundred years,
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  humans have had to do the majority of the physical work on a day-to-day basis.
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  Meaning in order for them to have any kind of food, calories,
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  safe roof over their heads, clean environment around them, they had to put in a lot of effort.
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  They had to burn a lot of energy to do that all day long.
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  They would be chopping wood, cleaning things, gathering food,
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  raising animals, taking care of their farm.
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  And all of that energy that was expended, that was burned, was built into our
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  genetics. So it was understood that we're going to burn a lot of calories,
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  that we're going to be very active in general.
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  That helped us maintain our muscle mass, the mobility of the joints,
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  the flexibility in the joints, the stability in our bodies so that we wouldn't fall. And.
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  But a lot of that has disappeared. Why do we need to know that? Why is that important?
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  I mention it because if these things continue, if we sort of give ourselves
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  to this modern society, these modern standards of living.
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  Then it's going to be very difficult for us to maintain overall health in the long term.
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  Whether we like it or not the physical
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  capability of our body becomes so
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  incredibly important after the age of 30 and it is an absolute necessity for
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  not just physical capability not just being able to do physical stuff but it's
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  also really important for our cardiovascular health we know that for preventing dementia,
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  exercise, activity, is probably one of the strongest factors in helping us prevent dementia.
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  Mental health, depression, mood, sleep, all of these are very closely tied to
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  exercise. It's just the way our body evolved.
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  The body, from an evolutionary perspective, or if you believe in God or religion,
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  it was designed, has evolved, or it was designed to balance enough activity levels.
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  So if the body didn't get enough activity, it would send a signal to us by letting
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  us know that, hey, you're not going to sleep good tonight or you're going to feel a little bit down.
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  And then all of a sudden we'd get up, we'd go, we'd go outside,
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  we'd exercise, we'd toil in the sun, as the saying goes.
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  And now we feel better. Now we feel stronger.
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  And some of the aspects of our modern life
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  also kind of lock us into these
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  awkward positions sitting on chairs and we're
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  sedentary for a long period of time we don't get a lot of circulation we
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  compress the nerves and the veins and the legs and
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  all of that creates its own kind of problems of course it doesn't have to it
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  doesn't have to be so drastic it's like okay so i gotta go to the gym one hour
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  a day no no i think building in some sort of an activity routine in your day is really good.
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  For example, taking a broom and a dustpan and just every day going around and
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  vacuuming, quote-unquote, your house is a great thing.
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  Cleaning your house every day, just a little bit here, a little bit there.
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  And then if you sit, especially if you've got a sedentary job,
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  for example, if you are working on a computer, if you're a project manager,
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  always on the phone, if you're an artist, always behind a kiln.
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  It's good to build in these moments where you just completely disconnect,
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  get up, stand up, go do something else. And I know that's not easy.
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  And setting an alarm to get yourself off of that area, out of that position is really good.
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  You can get on the ground, do some stretches. You can go for a walk.
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  You can go do some lifting and moving around of things in your house.
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  You can go do some gardening outside. this will help you break up that sedentariness
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  that a lot of us end up dealing with.
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  So again, don't look for the big wins like a big gym activity, a big exercise routine.
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  Sometimes those are not only difficult to start, they're sometimes difficult to maintain.
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  Unless, of course, you like the gym, in which case, yes, it's very easy and it's very fun.
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  Doing more of it is better. So lower activity, but more frequently,
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  is probably even better for your health than going really hardcore in the gym
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  30 minutes, 3 days a week.
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  This will help with better sleep at night, especially if you can do your activities outdoors.
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  It will help with mental health. It will subside anxiety levels.
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  It will help with balancing mood, especially our endorphins like dopamine,
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  norepinephrine, serotonin.
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  It will help with cardiovascular health because of the way your blood vessels
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  are going to change and the way your heart structure is going to change.
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  And very important, it's going to help build muscles in your joints, build strength.
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  If you have any limitations from pain or those kind of things,
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  definitely discuss that with your doctor so that you feel confident that what
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  you're doing is not going to harden.
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  I hope this is of value to you guys. Thank you so much, so much for listening.
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  I really would love your feedback.
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  If you can go to your favorite podcast app, leave me a review of this show and
• 6:20
  tell me what you would like to hear more, what could change, what would be better.
• 6:25
  I read every one of my reviews. Thank you for listening.