I have a quiestion for you, try to be honest. How much time during the day, meaning every day, do you move ?

I find it sick and amazing at the same time, that if you google “how much should we move during the day”, the results usually say “As a general goal, aim for at least 30 minutes of moderate physical activity every day.”

Can you imagine that we have these amazing capable bodies, a result of long evolution, and we are supposted to be moving for 30 minutes. I know it says moderate physical activity, but I also know a bit about human psychology and once you say to a human words “30 minutes”, people will focus on that. Recommendation should be “move as much as possible”, because whether we like it or not, this trend of sitting and not moving much will continue in the future with automation taking bigger and bigger slice of jobs performed today.

Going to buy groceries ? -> go by foot ! Is it your lunch break ? Pick the restaurant that is far away from your office and walk there, don’t worry, your corporation will still make millions even when you’ll arrive 5 minutes after your lunch break. Pick the stairs ! Yes, even when your office is on the 12th floor. (I used to to that when worked in the office). If you’re going to cover a greater distance, you might use a bicycle, but I’m the advocate of walking, I beleive it is a core of all movement and if you do it in barefoot shoes even better ! I hope you get the idea, the less your job requires movement, the more of these challenges you’ll need to do in addition to your afterwork sport activities. Most of us sit so much during the day that it is unreal, therefore you must take action, you have to make time for movement and remember, it is not a question if yes or not, we human beings and our bodies are meant to move for hours and hours a day, not to sit for 16 hours and then lie in bed and sleep for 8 hours. 

Now, you started moving a bit or you move already a lot, but here is another question for you. Do you do only one type of movement/sport/exercise or you do different modalities of them ?! Make no mistake about it, if you want to be balanced and healthy, you can’t just run all the time or hit the gym with the same sort of exercises all year long. It is not demanding for your mind and psychological state, because if you do the same thing all the time, your body will adjust, it does not put you out of your comfort zone and you cannot grow anymore. This leads to stagnation and if you’ve been moving and doing sports for a while, you know that stagnation will sooner or later come, therefore doing different modalities of sports and exercises will help you with that also. Stagnation can be pushed by using steroids and performance enhacing drugs, more on this also in different article in the future as this is very problematic and controversial topic. (I personally do not use steroids and I’m not planning to do so, I do not think it is worthy for an amateur like myself, but if you’re Pro you know about this already, but psssssssssst let’s not tell anyone that majority of athletes are using some kind of illegal performance enhancing drugs, it is a secret, or is it ?)

Next important factor and unpleasant question for you is: How much time during the day do you spend in the sun ? Can be you exercise, movement/sport done outdoors ? Many times it is a matter of choice: swimming in the lake vs. indoor pool, running on treadmill vs. running in the woods…you get the idea. Surprise surprise, I tried and googled “how much time during the day should you spend in the sun”, and there you go: “To maintain healthy blood levels, aim to get 10–30 minutes of midday sunlight, several times per week”. As I said before, I worked in the office for years and I know that 99 % of people that work there do not get even those 10 minutes a day. If possible exercise outdoors, pick the sport that can be done outdoors. This topic will be  also covered in different article talking not only about the importance of time spent in the sun but also how to protect from its unhealthy ultraviolet “UV” rays. (When the UV rays from the sun hit your skin, your skin converts them into vitamin D. Vitamin D plays an important role in regulating and strengthening the immune system, but too much UV exposure from the sun or artificial sources can increase risk of skin cancers and eye disease)

Is it just me or is the world turning on its head ? Counting min. 10 minutes a day in the sun + min. 30 minutes a day moving equals 40 minutes together and we’re good ! Our lives have gotten so out of hand that we search everywhere for those “minimal requirements” instead of trying to reconnect with nature, our bodies and minds.

You might be reading this while being a type of person who does a manual job, meaning you move for hours and hours a day, then of course you need to focus more on recovery or if you do a specific type of movement all day long, focus on balancing that. What do I mean ? Many people who do manual jobs are in a bad shape anyway, because they do one specific type of movement all day long, which is also not good if you do not take recovery seriously, stretch a lot and try to work on muscles that you do not use that much so your body can be in balanced state. 

Last but not least, to get a healthy dose of dopamine we all need and love to get, but not by taking drugs, watching porn and browsing social media you do physical activities which activate the release of a neurotransmitter called dopamine, often referred to as the “happy hormone.” I said it before and will repeat it again: our body and mind are one, connected working together. Move and get rid of your bad mood, depression and stress !

I know that i went into several different topics in this article, but there is so much to cover and I’ll do my best to do so in specific articles. I’ll post first “Different modalities article” soon. (there will be also series about recovery, supplementation, sun exposure and more). Take into consideration that movement articles will cover sports and activities I do at the moment, it might and probably will change in the future. There are also a lot of amazing sports and activities that I do not do at all but you might find them great and might be more suited for the area you currently live in or for your life situation.

As always, use common sense. Talk to you soon.