This 22 Minutes has One Hour

If you live in Canada you might be familiar with the Comedy Show This Hour Has 22 Minutes. The title references the fact that 30 minute TV shows are actually 22 minutes with 8 minutes of commercials. It is a little truth in advertising.

Last week the World Health Organization (WHO) came out with guidelines for activity to offset sedentary behaviour, ie. too much sitting.

First, the exercise guidelines, ones that are also set by the WHO and endorsed by most countries, are for 150 minutes of aerobic exercise and 2 days of strength training. These are based on the minimum amount of exercise to get health benefits.

Exceeding these recommendations can improve your health.

150 minutes a week is about 22 minutes a day. Just enough time to watch the show 🙂

Globally if we all did the minimum amount of exercise we would save (in US dollars) $314-446 billion a year and $6.0-8.6 trillion cumulatively over the 30 years in 2019 prices.

Not a bad return on 22 minutes a day.

To reverse the effects of too much sitting?

Do more.

At least 30-40 minutes of moderate to vigorous exercise EVERY DAY.

Daily activity can offset the negative health effects of too much sitting.

The WHO research recommends that for adults to offset the cost of sitting, including those living with long term conditions or disabilities at any age should do the following:

150-300 minutes a week of moderate-intensity or 75-150 minutes of vigorous aerobic activity (or a combination) per week.

Muscle-strengthening activity at a moderate or greater intensity on 2 or more days of the week.

Reduce sedentary behaviour and aim to exceed these weekly recommendations to offset health harms of prolonged sitting

What is moderate or intense activity?

Moderate-intensity physical activity increases heart rate and induces a degree of breathlessness where it’s still possible to answer a question with a full sentence.

That is the scientific explanation. I explain it as you can talk, but not sing. Rating your effort on a scale of 1 (easy) – 10 (OMG HARD) should feel like a 6-7/10.

Vigorous-intensity physical activity substantially increases heart rate and breathing. For example, you can only reply in one word answers. Most likely these will be expletives and you may start to wonder why you thought this was a good idea in the first place. Type 2 fun, you know it’s fun later when you think about it, but maybe not in that actual moment.

The bottom line is, the cost of sitting is greater than 22 minutes of exercise. It is more like the full hour (in television minutes, you know minus the commercials).

Change your mind, change your health,

Shayla