Movement Is Medicine: The Power Of Daily Activity

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Chores are good for us. I can hear you all screaming already. Household chores typically aren’t the most popular activity that people do through the course of the week. And I get it. It’s not what you do for fun, but it keeps your house in order. And that can include the outdoors, whether you’ve got a swimming pool and you’re tending to that, or vacuuming the floors, or dusting, or hanging out the washing, anything like that.

Researchers have found that what’s called “minimal” or minor forms of movement and exercise are very beneficial.

Light intensity exercise lowers cardio-kidney metabolic health syndrome issues. We think of exercise these days as going for a run, riding our bike, going to the gym, and playing sports, all of which are good.

Until maybe 50 to 80 years ago, most of what we did day to day involved movement. A hundred years ago, most people didn’t have a car. You had to walk or ride a bike to get from A to B. Most of the work that people did was physically based. Not anymore.

Now, that’s a good thing. There are lots of advantages to the modern world, but there’s never such a thing as a free lunch. I remember many years ago a staggering statistic that I heard at a conference: between 1965 and 2010, the amount of incidental movement through the course of the day for the average American—and I suspect it’s similar in most of Europe, Australia, the UK, New Zealand, Canada, most of the developed world—dropped by around 2,000 calories per week.

That is about one day’s calorie intake, and even more than one for some people, depending. So if you’re eating exactly the same amount of food in 1965 as you were in 2010—again, theoretical depending on your age—you effectively burn one day’s worth of calories per week.

That’s actually quite a lot.

What were these incidental movements? Think about it. When I was a kid, you had to get out of the car to open the garage door. You had to get up out of your seat to change the TV channel. You typically hung washing out on the line rather than putting it in the dryer. Even things like chopping vegetables—today, people can buy pre-chopped vegetables. There’s a lot of incidental activity and movement that we no longer have.

You can get a device to clean your swimming pool rather than doing it yourself. You can get an automatic vacuum cleaner to clean your floors rather than pushing it around yourself. These are labor-saving and time-saving devices. And certainly, when I get home, and it’s raining, and I can push a button rather than get out of my car to open the garage door, I like that. That makes my life better.

Back when I was a child, there were only three TV stations anyway, not the hundreds there are today. So getting up to change the channel wasn’t something you did all that often, but if you did, you had to. Now you’ve got your remote control, and you can scroll through, and you can even watch shows on your phone or your laptop.

All of this is good and makes our lives simpler, but it comes at a cost: we are not doing that activity.

So, surprise, surprise—light physical activity is an overlooked tool that can help improve heart health. This is important because metabolic syndrome affects a large percentage of the population. It can include carrying a little bit more around the middle than is ideal, along with changes in blood pressure, blood sugar, and cholesterol. Different criteria are used in different places, but we all know what we’re talking about—the person at higher risk for type 2 diabetes, heart disease, stroke, and kidney disease.

Light physical activity—as little as one hour a day—was linked to a 14 to 20% lower death risk over 14 years. Increasing that light activity was associated with even more benefits.

These are people not necessarily going to the gym—although that’s good too—but just doing a little bit more around the house.

There are other ways to add incidental activity into your day. When you go to the shopping center, instead of driving around three times to get a park closest to the entrance, park further away. Yes, if it’s the middle of winter and raining, you might not want to. But it’s not going to be that many days. And many supermarkets allow you to drive up and have your groceries loaded into your car afterward.

I’m always staggered at airports when there is an escalator and steps. People line up for the escalator while nobody is on the stairs. It’s not that hard to take a flight of stairs. I appreciate that some people struggle with stairs and need the escalator or even the elevator. But for most of us, it is doable—even with carry-on luggage.

At work, if you’re on the second or third floor, you can take the stairs. Maybe not if you’re on the 30th floor—but there are lots of small ways to add incidental movement into daily life. And it makes a difference.

When I reflect on my lifetime, the changes in technology have been massive compared to those of someone born a hundred years before me. A person born in 1700 might have lived to 1750 or 1760 and seen relatively small changes. Someone born between 1800 and 1860 saw the Industrial Revolution. From 1900 to 1960, inventions accelerated—aircraft, motorcars, radio, television, and cinema.

But someone born in 2000, by the time they reach 2050 or 2060—and they may live into their 90s—will see massive change.

Google was developed in 1998. That’s less than 30 years ago. Smartphones became widespread in the late 2000s. The iPhone 4 was when apps really took off. Social media platforms like Instagram and Snapchat became widely adopted less than two decades ago. The original mobile phones are less than 40 years old. In the 1990s, you used your phone to call people. Now you’ve got a computer in your pocket.

All of this is fine. The genie is not going back in the bottle—and we probably wouldn’t want it to.

But while our lives are simpler and faster, we need to counterbalance that. The best way to do that is with regular exercise and adding incidental movement.

This type of activity, not classed as formal exercise, is very valuable.

Statistics have shown that people who do some regular basic exercise—without running marathons—are somewhere between 36 and 42% less likely to suffer from depression and anxiety. Decades of research show that a simple habit can rival antidepressants for some people.

The barrier isn’t science. It’s how mental health care works. It’s often easier to prescribe a tablet. But 10 minutes a day—no cost, no waiting list, no warning labels—has been shown to make a difference in mental health. Exercise is very good for stress relief. If we’re less stressed, we may also be less susceptible to depression and anxiety.

It’s not a force field. Some people will continue to need medication. It doesn’t have to be either-or.

But simple measures get much less attention than they deserve.

So, for both your physical and mental health, regular physical activity is really good. What you do doesn’t matter as much as the fact that you do it.

Add some incidental movement—including household chores. Instead of thinking, “I have to do my chores,” think, “I’m doing some exercise.” That shift in mindset may even make you feel better about it.

Keep the body active. The human body is designed to move. And it’s good for both our physical and mental health.

Simple daily activities like household chores have surprising benefits for both physical and mental health. Light movement done consistently can support heart health, reduce stress, and lower the risk of depression and anxiety. In a world where technology makes life easier but more sedentary, adding back small amounts of natural movement may be one of the simplest and most effective health strategies available.

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Movement is medicine

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