From running up stairs, to rigorous gardening: these everyday activities could boost your health and help you live longer.
Everyone knows that the key to a healthy long life is to exercise and eat well. But what if you simply don't have the time to slog it out at the gym, or chalk up 10,000 steps a day? The good news is that doing everyday activities with more rigour and energy can achieve huge benefits. Think running up the stairs, power walking around the house, or playing with your children or pets.
If you've followed exercise science in the last three years, you might have encountered a new term: vigorous intermittent lifestyle physical activity or VILPA. Also described through the various monikers of "exercise snacking," "snacktivity," or "activity microbursts," it's the latest solution to a long-term problem - how best to coax the most reluctant of exercisers to sit less and move more?
In the past decade, high-intensity interval training (HIIT) - which involves pushing the body to its limits through brief explosive bursts of running, cycling and bodyweight exercises like squats or jumping jacks - has become a popular workout for more time-pressed gym goers. It has also been shown to improve blood sugar control, cholesterol, blood pressure and body fat.
According to Mark Hamer, professor of sport and exercise medicine at University College London, VILPA is a scaled down form of HIIT. It simply means doing everyday activities with slightly more gusto with the aim of raising your heart rate for one or two minutes at a time.