Geschatte leestijd: 3 minuten
Start mopping. Household chores not only result in a tidier home but also reduce the risk of death by 28%.
Burning Calories with Housework
Canadian researchers have discovered that active household chores have a positive effect on life expectancy. By spending 2.5 hours per week on tasks such as gardening, mopping, vacuuming, and kitchen cleaning, the risk of death can be reduced by almost 30%.
The researchers at McMaster used data from the Prospective Urban Rural Epidemiology (PURE) study. This provided them with data from over 130,000 people from 17 different countries. As recently described in the article on fats vs. carbohydrates, this includes both high-income and low-income countries. This is an important consideration because if survival itself is a challenge, you’re less likely to sign up for a gym membership or join the cricket club. They found this data particularly useful to gain insight into the effects of other activities such as walking or cycling to work, having a physical job, and indeed household chores.
The World Health Organization recommends that adults aged 18 to 64 engage in at least 150 minutes of moderate-intensity aerobic activity per week. Additionally, it is advised to do strength exercises at least twice a week.
From the data of the PURE study, it was found that increasing heart rate with half an hour of activity per day or 150 minutes per week was enough to reduce the risk of death by 28% and the risk of heart disease by 20%. The type of activity performed didn’t matter. Moreover, the effect was even greater with higher activity levels. For example, people who walked 750 minutes per week reduced the risk of death by 36%. Only 3% of the participants achieved this amount through recreational activities. 38% of the participants reached this level of activity through commuting, work itself, and household chores.
Household Chores or More Exercise?
In the study, many different activities contributed to the life-extending effects. The main conclusion is that it is especially important to do something often and regularly enough to increase heart rate.
Lead researcher Dr. Scott Lear from Simon Fraser University says that it’s important to incorporate the right amount of activity into daily life. Going to the gym is nice, but many people don’t have or make enough time for that. So, it just comes down to moving often enough and appreciating all types of activity as long as the intensity is high enough.
Of course, if you aspire to a certain physique, you probably won’t get far with half an hour of vacuuming and doing the dishes. This is mainly about health effects in general and cardiovascular health in particular. The recommended strength training, which is not covered in this study, can of course play a significant role in quality of life in later years.
Tips for Burning More Calories
- Lunge night: Choose one evening a week where you can only move around by doing walking lunges. Convenient to do at home unless you’re a fan of Monty Python and want to do this silly walk at work.
- Calf night: Same idea, but this time, you spend the whole evening on tiptoes.
- Dust squats: While vacuuming, push the vacuum forward by squatting down; when getting up, pull the vacuum back towards you.
- Potato raises: For the couch potatoes. If you’re going to sit in front of the TV anyway, turn it into an ab workout. Lift your feet slightly off the ground by tightening your abs and hold them there for a while. Repeat this during each commercial break. Also ideal when starting a new series on Netflix. Letting your feet hang for 10 seconds longer with each new episode. Have fun with Game of Thrones.
- Couch thrust: If you’re already slouched on the couch, sink a little further until your buttocks and lower back are over the edge. Move the coffee table out of the way and start hip thrusting.
These are just a few spontaneous examples. The point is that you need to be a little creative here. Not everyone has the opportunity to walk or cycle to work. Moreover, many people spend a large part of the day glued to a desk. Therefore, look for ways to make small adjustments to your current routine to increase your heart rate.
Above all, make a game out of challenging yourself in a fun way!
References
- thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(17)31634-3/fulltext
