The regular practice of physical activities is a general recommendation of health professionals. However, people are only sometimes able to reconcile their routine with exercise, and this ends up leading to a sedentary lifestyle.
The problem is that physical and mental health can be negatively affected when we don’t keep the body active. Thus, the quality of life reduces, and we are more susceptible to problems and diseases.
The good news is that with some simple practices that can be applied daily, we can adopt a healthier lifestyle and avoid inactivity. In this article, we show you what you can do to stop being sedentary and take even better care of your health. Keep reading!
What Is A Sedentary Lifestyle?
Avoiding a sedentary lifestyle is crucial because physical activity is essential to maintain a healthy balance. However, many people need help to insert exercises into their routines.
A person is considered passive when he does not practice physical activity regularly. Therefore, they are those who do not have the habit of exercising or who exercise little, insufficiently to meet their body’s needs.
It is worth mentioning that work is not considered a physical activity, even if it requires effort and energy. This is because physical activities must be oriented and explicitly structured to stimulate organic and mental activity.
Therefore, to abandon a sedentary lifestyle, the ideal is to adopt an exercise script developed by a professional. With this, the activities will bring the expected results and be personalized since each person has different needs, limitations and objectives.
What Are The Dangers Of A Sedentary Lifestyle?
Indeed, the lack of physical activity generally significantly affects body shape. When the organism does not consume all the energy ingested through food, it starts to make reserves, that is, to accumulate fat, mainly in the abdominal region and hips. It is the famous story of deficit (or surplus) caloric: an account that tells if we are ingesting more calories than we spend or vice versa.
However, the aesthetic issue is just one of the problems caused by a sedentary lifestyle. After all, thin people also feel the negative impacts caused by it because when the body is inactive, it doesn’t work the way it should.
The heart, for example, starts to work without making great efforts since there is no need to pump blood with more speed and intensity. In simple terms, he gets used to a quiet life. The problem is that when the person needs him to make an extra effort, it becomes difficult to do so.
Another danger of a sedentary lifestyle is the accumulation of fat in the blood, the popular high cholesterol. It favors the formation of plaques in the arteries, which reduce their diameter, impairing blood flow and the functioning of the heart, with the risk of clogging the vessels.
These conditions also favor other complications, such as heart attacks and strokes. There is a greater susceptibility to developing diabetes, joint problems and hypertension. Not to mention that the body loses its conditioning, with the risk of atrophying the musculature, since it is not used.
How To Change Your Life And Stop Being Sedentary?
The first thing we need to remember is to abandon a sedentary lifestyle and take it one step at a time. It’s a significant change in habits and lifestyle, so reaching your goals is more accessible by starting slowly.
There are often difficulties that end up interfering with the practice of physical activities, such as tight schedules, needing to know where to start and even laziness or indisposition, which bring discouragement to attending a gym, for example. Who never watched that excitement of enrolling in the academy dissipate little by little in the following months?
To change this reality, the ideal is not to charge yourself so much at the beginning and, as said, to know that significant changes happen gradually. We must respect the limit of our body – and each person has their own.
From one moment to another, those who are sedentary cannot decide that they will run 5 km every day: it is a considerable effort, a very drastic change. Setting unrealistic goals is the shortest path to frustration, and it is normal for our brain to end up sabotaging us when we try, overnight, to promote significant changes in our habits.
It’s worth starting, for example, with a half-hour walk three times a week to get your body used to this new effort gradually. If you don’t do a regular physical activity today, remember that those three walks a week are already a huge step forward.
Also Read: Healthy Eating: Why Is It So Important To Your Life?
