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The magic of 10 minutes a day

I have been chased by lower back pain most of my life.  A series of unfortunate events (let’s call it karma) led to a herniated disc. I remember going to a neurologist and left surprised by his simple advice —and he was super nice about it — to stay within 10 lbs. of my current weight and exercise regularly.

There’s been a lot of exercise since then – not all of it regular or sustained. I notice pretty quickly when I let it slide for too long. I had a miserable night’s sleep the other night. I love sleeping but on this particular night, I couldn’t get comfortable and was relieved when it was finally time to get up.

Needless to say, I worked out and did all my stretches the next day. I recruited my future self for motivation. I knew she would thank my past self.

More recently I wandered outside that long ago prescribed regular weight zone. (Ahem.) But a couple of months ago, I made it back to my zone (yay!).

The magic bullet

It’s counterintuitive, but there are some conditions–like back pain– that only get better with daily activity. More than 20 years ago, Harvard Magazine published Harvard scientists on the power of exercise to improve health, prevent disease. In it, Frank Hu, now the Fredrick J. Stare Professor of Nutrition and Epidemiology at Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health said, “The single thing that comes close to a magic bullet, in terms of its strong and universal benefits, is exercise.”

I wish I was the person who loved the routine of a morning run. I am not. I took up swimming as a kid because I didn’t like to sweat. Later I discovered weight training and then HIIT (high-intensity interval training), and learned that I don’t need a 5-mile run to get the benefits of regular exercise. I just needed 10 minutes almost every day.

My favorite workouts are:

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Here’s the catch

The bad news is that although a 10-minute workout will do wonders, 10 minutes of activity total per day isn’t enough. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), levels of inactivity are on the rise with nearly one-third of the world’s adult population, 1.8 billion adults, considered physically inactive. This is a 5% increase since 2010.

Adults should get 150-300 minutes of physical activity per week; children should get 60 minutes of physical activity per day. And for the most part, more is better if you can do it, according to the WHO. Activity for women is less overall and activity tends to decrease when we hit 60.

Making time for a 10-minute workout is doable most days, and that’s the most important trait of a workout. But I do shoot for a minimum of 35 active minutes per day. My fitness tracker data for last year recorded an average of 52 minutes per day so 50 minutes is clearly doable. We walk the dogs every day and lately, we have been doing the wood chip workout. We had about 15-20 yards of wood chips delivered on October 31 and that’s a lot of wood chips to distribute across our yard. We finally got through the pile on January 12 and then had five yards of crushed gravel delivered on January 15 for the potholes-in-the-street filling workout!

I also started carrying a weight up and down the stairs, which is something that I do many times a day. And I have a pull-up bar to work on grip strength.

All of this means I’ve been sleeping better and looking out for my future self.

Photo by Adrian Curiel on Unsplash