It’s health season in the Irish Times. In print and online, we will offer encouragement and inspiration to help us all improve our physical and mental health in 2022. Please refer
irishtimes.com/health
In a year of hopes, setbacks, strides, and losses related to Covid, the most important sports science of 2021 has been a reminder that for many of us our bodies and minds can strengthen, endure, and thrive regardless of our circumstances. When we move our bodies properly, there is growing body of evidence to suggest that we could live with greater perseverance, determination, and cognitive clarity for many years to come.
And it may not take a lot of exercise.
In fact, some of the biggest fitness news of the year was about how little exercise we can get while maintaining or even improving our health. For example, a study last January showed that just five minutes of vigorous exercise significantly improved aerobic fitness and leg strength in college students. Another series of studies from the University of Texas found that four seconds – yes, seconds – of vigorous cycling, repeated multiple times, is enough to increase strength and endurance in adults, regardless of their age or health when they first started.
Even people whose favorite exercise is walking may take less than they think to reach a workout sweet spot, other new research suggests. As I wrote in July, the well-known goal of 10,000 daily steps that is deeply anchored in our activity trackers and our collective consciousness has little scientific validity. It’s a myth born out of a marketing spill, and a study published this summer further debunked it, finding that people who walked 7,000 to 8,000 steps, or about 3 miles, generally lived longer than those who walked less walked or accumulated more than 10,000 steps. So keep moving, but don’t worry if your total doesn’t reach a five-digit step count.
Of course, sports science has also focused on other resonant topics in 2021, including weight. And the news there wasn’t just cheering. Several studies in 2021 confirmed an emerging scientific consensus that our bodies offset some of the calories we burn off during physical activity by diverting energy away from certain cellular processes or by unconsciously causing us to move and fidget less.
For example, a study from July that looked at the metabolism of nearly 2,000 people found that on average we compensate for about a quarter of the calories we burn through exercise. As a result, on days we exercise, we burn far fewer total calories than we might think, making weight loss even more difficult.
Exercise, on the other hand, appears to be essential for weight maintenance, according to other research from 2021. A new scientific analysis of participants in The Biggest Loser TV weight loss contest found that those who did in the years after the program ended the most who exercised were least likely to regain any pounds they lost during the show.
Exercise also disproportionately affects our chances of living long, healthy lives. According to one of the most inspiring studies from 2021, obese people who started exercising reduced their risk of premature death by about 30 percent even if they remained overweight, with exercise being about twice as beneficial as losing weight.
Physically active people tend to come up with more inventive ways of using automobile tires and umbrellas, a standard test of creativity, than people who rarely move around
Exercise also strengthens our brain performance, according to other memorable experiments from 2021. They showed that physical activity strengthens immune cells that protect us from dementia; Stimulating the release of a hormone that improves neuron health and thinking skills (in mice); strengthen the white matter tissue of our brain, the material that connects and protects our working brain cells; and probably even contribute to our creativity. In a nifty study from February last year, physically active people tended to find more inventive ways of using automobile tires and umbrellas, a standard test of creativity, than those who rarely moved.
In summary, exercise neuroscience research of 2021 “makes a strong case for getting up and moving” if we hope to use our brains with sustained clarity and imaginative ways into our golden years, as one of the researchers told me.
Still, the study that bothered me the most last year had less to do with how exercise reshapes our bodies and brains and more about how it might shape our sense of what really matters. In the study I wrote about in May, active people reported a stronger purpose in their life than inactive people.
“A sense of purpose is the feeling you get when you have goals and plans that give life a direction and purpose,” the study’s lead researcher told me. “It’s about engaging with life in a productive way.”
The study found that exercise increased people’s determination over time, while at the same time, a strong sense of purpose made people more willing to exercise. Indeed, the more people found their lives meaningful, the more they moved, and the more they moved, the more meaningful they found their lives.
There is an outcome worth remembering if we look ahead with cautious optimism. So in 2022, everyone should stay healthy, active and in touch. – This article originally appeared in the New York Times.
