Claim: Going for a Lunch-Hour Walk Has Great Health Benefits
Update: Tom Brady Dissembles on DeflateGate

I wouldn't mention this nonsense from the NYT except I got one of those fitness-trackers that prompts you to take 10,000 steps a day, and there's no way to get close to that (given a sedentary job) without a 1.5-2.5 mile walk. (Or walk/run, when I can manage it.)

I gotta tell you, I recommend the practice. I feel relatively good. And I felt relatively awful for literally three or four years. Every single day, I said, usually aloud: "I feel bad."

I don't say that much anymore, and sometimes I say the opposite, affirmatively: "I feel pretty good."

Okay I never say "I feel great" but that's just the way I'm wired.

Eh... you can pick up the Jawbone coin-style tracker for like $50, plus another $10 for a plastic wristband to wear while sleeping. Worth it.

I'm looking at the new year's models, the Fitbit Charge HR (which tracks heartbeat) which was just released, but you can't get it because it immediately sells out, and the Jawbone 3 (which tracks... Resting heartbeart) and will be available... sometime this year.

But for now I just have the one I have.

To combat afternoon slumps in enthusiasm and focus, take a walk during the lunch hour.

A new study finds that even gentle lunchtime strolls can perceptibly -- and immediately -- buoy people's moods and ability to handle stress at work.

It is not news, of course, that walking is healthy and that people who walk or otherwise exercise regularly tend to be more calm, alert and happy than people who are inactive.

But many past studies of the effects of walking and other exercise on mood have focused on somewhat long-term, gradual outcomes, looking at how weeks or months of exercise change people emotionally.

Fewer studies have examined more-abrupt, day-to-day and even hour-by-hour changes in people’s moods, depending on whether they exercise, and even fewer have focused on these effects while people are at work, even though most of us spend a majority of our waking hours in an office.

A big thing, too, is if you can get outside to get some fresh air and some sunshine on your skin in winter-- really helps boost mood and energy. You probably have heard that virtually everyone North of Miami is deficient in Vitamin D, which is produced in the skin when exposed to strong sunlight. Getting at least a little naturally-produced Vitamin D in the skin does help increase one's mood and energy.

Oh I should mention @johnEkdahl told me to get one of these when he saw what a fat-assed porkchop I had let myself become. He said, "Hey, Fatty, you need to get off your big fat dumper."

Wise words from a sage man.

Update: Tom Brady Livestream. He'll be avoiding the questions in DeflateGate

posted by Ace at 04:00 PM

| Access Comments