Highlights benefits of outdoor exercise over indoor.
As I noted last week, I believe that the key to the future in an aging society is found in not only increasing our life span but also increasing our health span. Crucial to this effort is maintaining function through movement – through that thing we call exercise.
Though the current national exercise base line is 150 minutes a week of moderate physical activity, many experts are suggesting that much more is needed to achieve optimal benefits. According to two studies recently published in JAMA Internal Medicine involving more than a half-million people, those who exercised 450 minutes a week (which comes out to about an hour each day) were 39 percent less likely to die prematurely. Achieving this level of activity does not require a gym membership or a personal trainer. You can get the benefit with a mix of vigorous to moderate actions, including taking a brisk walk. My strong recommendation is that you direct it toward nature.
I know I have been hitting this “call to the wild” pretty hard recently, but with reason. In multiple studies of exercise behavior, it has been found that one of the most reliable indicators of whether people will continue to exercise is that they find exercise satisfying. Outdoor exercise has been shown to contribute to increased energy and revitalization – along with decreased anger, depression and tension – when compared with indoor exercise, and participants enjoy their workouts more and are likelier to stay with them. Researchers believe that our state of mindfulness during exercise, which they define simply as awareness of what is happening in the moment, affects the exercise. It can alter our sense of satisfaction. People seem to find more pleasure in movement when it occurs outdoors.
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