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| Get More Active, Feel Less Tired |
A recent report reviewed all of the research that has looked at the link between regular physical activity and feelings of energy.
1. SURVEYS
Large scale surveys asked people to report on how active they are, and how often they feel tired.
Results:
The more active a person is, the more likely they are to report frequent feelings of energy.
Sedentary people experience more feelings of low energy and fatigue.
2. EXPERIMENTS
Experiments have been conducted that either increase or decrease the amount of activity a person does to see how this
affects their feelings of energy.
Making People Less Active:
When a group of healthy young men were forced to endure 20 days of bed rest, they reported much higher levels of fatigue
and much lower levels of energy than before the experiment.
Making People More Active:
Patients with various fatigue-related medical conditions, who were given between 10-20 weeks of exercise training reported
large increases in feelings of energy and vitality, compared to similar patients who didn't receive any exercise.
The Conclusions:
The review came to the following conclusions:
More Activity = Less Fatigue - There is a clear link between doing regular physical activity and feeling more energetic and less tired.
Less is More - The best type of activity to increase feelings of energy is low to moderate intensity activity.
More intense athlete style training can actually have the opposite effect on feelings of energy by creating a form of activity burn-out.
Who gains the most - The people who will experience the biggest increases in energy levels from taking regular exercise, are those who
are currently sedentary and who already report feeling fatigued.
In other words, the people with the greatest need, will get the most benefit.
Ref: O'Connor & Puetz. (2005) Medicine & Science in Sports and Exercise. 37: pp299-305. |
Walking May Improve Your Immunity |
A recent US study looked at the effects of a 30-minute walk on a wide range of immune function measures.
They analysed blood samples from healthy volunteers after sitting quietly for 30 minutes and after walking briskly for 30 minutes.
They found that a 30 minute walk led to positive changes in several immune system components. Whereas sitting for 30 minutes
was not associated with any such beneficial changes.
This study adds to the existing bulk of evidence to show that moderate activity (activity that raises the heart rate to between
60-65% of its maximum rate) leads to positive immune changes, by increasing the number of immune-system cells in the blood.
The authors suggest that these immune changes may explain why regular moderate exercise is associated with fewer upper
respiratory tract infections and consequently, fewer days off due to sickness.
Ref: Nieman et al (2005). Medicine & Science in Sports and Exercise, Vol 37, No 1. p57-62
See www.acsm-msse.org.
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