No-motion, slow-motion, and . . .

. . . I dunno. Fill in your own rhyme.

Rebecca Hamilton writes here about the importance, to your health, of not sitting around.  She mentions the research, and also her personal experience with RA that bears it out.  The clincher in the health news: It’s not about just the “exercise” component of your day, where you are doing something all active-like and you count it as physical fitness.  Think of that “30 Minutes 5 Days a Week”, or whatever the source of your choice has been telling you over the past couple decades.

What also matters is how you spend the many hours of the day when you aren’t “exercising”.  (Hint: Writing as a career is hazardous to your health. So is accounting.  Rearing children, in contrast, offers very many health benefits, and not just for keeping vocal chords warm.)

Now I never doubted this.  In fact I was rather depending on Putting Away Laundry as a health-preserving scheme.  But interestingly, the vexing illness has given me some powerful evidence on the biological difference between Sitting Around and Not Sitting around, but from the other side of the coin.

First let’s review Life as Normal People Know It.  Call it Jen’s Life in January 2014:

1. Sitting around = feels like no effort.  Big surprise.
2. Pottering about = feels like no effort.  As it should be.
3. Going for a pleasant walk = um, pleasant.  No big deal.  Good for you.  As it should be.
4. Going for a brisk walk = exercise.  Not that intense, but it counts, right?
5. Throw in some big hills,  some running, or switch it out and do some strength training = Exercise exercise.
6. Sprint, haul really heavy things around the yard fast, etc. = intense effort.  Enjoyable.

The thing is, if you’re a healthy person, #1-3 feel about the same.  You’d be bored if you *just* sat, but if your brain is engaged in something, you don’t particularly notice that your body is doing something radically different in #1 than it is in #2 or #3.

Ha!  Let me tell you, is it ever.

Here’s my new scale, call it the February 2014 Vexing Illness Scale:

1. Sitting or laying reclined, body fully supported, such as in a Lazy Boy: No effort.  Can do that awake all day and half the night –> Insomnia inducing, it takes so little effort, even for the vexingly ill person.
2. Sitting upright but in a pretty good chair: No problem if rested, palpable effort if tired.
3. Sitting up, unsupported (bench, stool, etc.): No problem if really really rested, no-go if tired.
4. Pottering about — walking at Wedding Procession Pace: No problem if rested; if tired, induces desperate desire to go lay down and shut eyes ASAP.
5. Walking normally: Bad idea.  Feels great at first, but the coughing kicks in after a bit, and you pay for it later.  For hours.
6. Walking briskly: Just no.  Just. No.

Note that #1-5 *all feel about the same* to a normal person.  You probably aren’t aware that your body is working noticeably more if it’s sitting on one of these instead of one one of these.  I am here to tell you: Yes! There is a big difference!

And pottering about the garden, or dusting the nick-knacks?  Adds another level.  Fetching the mail, feeding the cat, sweeping the kitchen, wandering down to the playground . . . your body is doing something radically, radically different than what it does while sitting on the couch watching TV.

 

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Anyway, in happy news, I figured out that if I’m walking like a normal person, I have to just stop, pretend there’s a wedding director giving me the evil eye, and resume at processional-pace.  So far it works, anyway.

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Note: Any inference on your part that I actually dust nick-knacks is your own fault. That was a purely hypothetical example.