Sitting is bad for you. Moving is healthy. Good sleep is important. We all know it. But at the same time, we just have to earn money (while sitting), get up early, and we sometimes miss out on sports. And then you can sometimes feel discouraged, because how can you – with a view to your health – make optimal use of those 24 hours that are only in one day? Good news: scientists have figured it out.
Their findings can be read in the magazine Diabetology and reveal how much time you should ideally spend per day sleeping, sitting, standing and (actively) moving, in order to achieve optimal health benefits. Their conclusion? Ideally, you spend 6 hours sitting a day, standing 5 hours and 10 minutes and sleeping 8 hours and 20 minutes. You then divide the remaining 4 hours and 20 minutes equally between light-intensity physical activities (such as cooking food or vacuuming) and moderate to very intensive physical activities (such as a workout at the gym or a brisk walk).
Sensors
The researchers drew this conclusion after analyzing the behavior and health of more than 2,000 Dutch people – who were between 40 and 75 years old. The test subjects wore sensors that monitored what they were doing 24 hours a day, 7 days in a row. This gave the researchers an idea of the time these people spent sleeping, sitting, standing and moving.
Measurements
Prior to the week in which the subjects were monitored, their blood sugar, insulin sensitivity, cholesterol and waist circumference were also measured. Based on this, the researchers could then also estimate the chance that these test subjects had of developing diabetes, a stroke or cardiovascular problems.
Fashion model
Using a model, the researchers then looked for the ideal daily schedule to minimize the risk of diabetes and heart disease. This showed that anyone who wants to minimize their risk of developing heart disease, for example, should maintain a slightly different daily schedule than someone who wants to reduce their risk of diabetes. But these different daily schedules did overlap. And in general, the greatest health gain can be achieved in this overlap, because it can reduce the risk of diabetes, cardiovascular disease and stroke. And so the researchers ultimately arrive at an ideal daily schedule, in which you sit for 6 hours, stand for 5 hours and 10 minutes, sleep for 8 hours and 20 minutes, do light physical exercise for 2 hours and 10 minutes and exercise intensively for 2 hours and 10 minutes.
It is well known that exercise is healthy. And you may also be familiar with the advice to exercise intensively for 2 to 2.5 hours every week. But there is increasing evidence that active exercise in itself is only a small piece of the puzzle; How you spend your days – how much you sit, stand, sleep and be mildly active – can also have a big impact on your health. And that is why researchers thought it was so important to look at how you can best organize your day – with a view to your health and in particular the risk of diabetes, stroke and cardiovascular disease. And then it turns out to be all about balance again, as researcher Christian Brakenridge emphasizes. “Sleeping can be harmful to your health if it is at the expense of the time you spend moving, but can be beneficial if it is at the expense of the time you spend sitting. That’s why we also need guidelines that take the full spectrum of human behavior into consideration.”
Feasible?
You may be a bit shocked by the advice to do 2 hours and 10 minutes of low-intensity physical activity every day. But that is not necessary, the researchers say. In their study they define mildly intensive physical movement as movement in which you take fewer than 100 steps per minute. And with that you can already count the walk to the coffee machine at work as this form of exercise. But the steps you take while cooking, vacuuming or in the supermarket also count. Many people will approach this goal unnoticed, spread throughout the day.
Brisk walking
But then the 2 hours and 10 minutes of intensive exercise: isn’t that a task? According to the researchers, that is also not too bad. They define this form of exercise as more than 100 steps per minute. And so a long, brisk walk – or several short, brisk walks per day – can go a long way.
These are preliminary guidelines – intended for healthy adults, the researchers emphasize. More research is needed to further refine them and clarify the connection between our actions and health. For example, this study only determined how many hours people exercised per day, not what exactly they were doing when they exercised. It may be possible that in the future specific forms of exercise can be identified that can be associated with greater or lesser health benefits. Another shortcoming of this study is that the researchers only established an association between time use and health. So there is a connection between the two, but how exactly they relate to each other remains unclear. It is tempting to conclude that people who exercise a lot and sit little are healthier, because they exercise a lot and sit little. But that may not be the whole story. Our daily schedule may not only influence our health, but our health may also influence our daily schedule. In that scenario, people who are not very healthy would exercise less (often) due to their poorer health. And that could partly help explain why we find people who exercise a lot more often in the group of ‘healthy people’. Follow-up research should show to what extent the daily schedule influences health and to what extent health influences the daily schedule.
Small adjustments
And so there is still a lot to investigate. But pending follow-up research, it certainly wouldn’t hurt to take a closer look at your daily schedule and see if there is still room for improvement, i.e. more exercise. “It is always advisable to exercise as much as possible, especially now that life today requires us to spend a lot of time behind our screens,” says Brakenridge. “Sitting less and standing more, exercising and sleeping well, give a huge boost to our cardiometabolic health.”
And anyone who wants to improve their life does not have to completely change their day. Just go to the office more often or take a walk in the hallway. Or take the bike instead of the car when you go shopping. Or go to bed a little earlier, so that you can get more than 8 hours of sleep.
