Doug Kelsey's Blog

You Don't Need Much to Feel Better

About this time each year, people make resolutions that involve exercise. To lose weight or improve muscle tone or just generally improve health. But, happiness and fighting the blues is usually not on the exercise list. I've not found very many people who say, "I'm going to increase my happiness and avoid the blues and I'm going to use exercise to do it."

But, researchers have found that exercise does make you feel better - mentally and emotionally. Exercise helps you manage stress and will boost your general sense of well being. But, until recently, no one seemed to know exactly how much exercise you needed to feel brighter.

It turns out, it's not very much. Twenty minutes per week is all you need to boost your mood and it's just activity really. Twenty minutes of doing anything physical - gardening, house cleaning, walking your dogs - was shown to improve mental well-being.

Considering that a lot of people live sedentary lives (one that is defined by fewer than 5000 steps per day), twenty minutes a week is a good place to start. Of course, twenty minutes per week of activity (and my opinion is that exercise and activity are different things - you can read about it here) won't do much for your overall fitness but it's a lot easier to do when you're in a better mood.

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Hamer, M., E. Stamatakis, et al. (2009). "Dose-response relationship between physical activity and mental health: the Scottish Health Survey." Br J Sports Med 43(14): 1111-4.

New Device Monitors Sleep, Steps, Calories

Here's a cool new device that tracks calories spent, steps taken, and how soundly you sleep all for about $100. It's called the FitBit.

The downside to devices that calculate your caloric expenditure, like the treadmill or bike at the gym, is that the results tend to overstate the actual amount of calories your burned. The formulas use your body weight to estimate your basal metabolic rate and then return a total calories burned figure. But, you have to subtract the amount of calories that you burn just to be alive (also referred to as Basal Metabolic Rate). The difference is usually around 20%. The Fitbit group claims that their device is very accurate. I haven't seen the proof yet though. 

One of the interesting features of the device is the monitoring of sleep. It does this by detecting motion of your arm. The assumption is that deep sleep renders you motionless and when you sleep fitfully you move around- roll, turn, get up, etc., and the device detects this using the same type of sensor in the Wii system. 

I'm curious how well this thing works and being the early adopter type, may give it a go. If I do, I'll let you know what I think.

What's a "Lifestyle"?

Lifestyle: a way of life that reflects a person’s values and beliefs.

Owning and riding a motorcycle, if it’s a Harley, is a Harley Davidson lifestyle.

Taking fewer than 5000 steps per day is a sedentary lifestyle.

Consuming fewer resources and producing less harmful waste is a green lifestyle.

Performing activities that substantially increase energy expenditure is an active lifestyle.

Whatever you do regularly and consistently is part of your overall lifestyle.

What kinds of lifestyles do you have?