Go for a Two-Minute Walk. Your Life Depends on It

“Even small changes can have a big impact.”

In just two minutes, you can cut your risk of death by a third.

A 2015 study has shown that as little as 2 minutes of walking per hour has the effect of reducing one’s risk of dying by one-third.

It’s so simple, yet so many of us don’t do it. Two minutes! That’s it. You can do that. Anybody can do that.

We weren’t built to sit

We weren’t made to sit at desks all day, and then to sit in our cars for an hour, and then sit on our couches for the rest of the evening.

Humans evolved to move; to sprint after prey or away from predators, to lift heavy things like carcasses and building materials, and to walk for sometimes days at a time. If we want to be healthy, we need to simulate the lifestyle that we evolved to have.

You don’t need to do vigorous activity to be healthy

While there is so much emphasis on vigorous activity, exercising for an hour at a time, and hitting 10,000 steps every day, this study suggests that simply walking for two minutes has the ability to have a huge effect on your life.

The authors state,

“Our study suggests that even small changes can have a big impact.”

Moving often is more important than moving more intensely.

Commit to walking for two minutes of every hour

We all know we sit way too much, yet none of us does anything about this.

Set an alarm if you have to. Use a Pomodoro timer. Do what you need to do to get yourself up and moving each hour.

This includes while you’re watching TV or playing video games; it’s not just while you’re at your desk.

This low level activity is incredibly powerful, and is something I have covered on numerous occasions. The people that live the longest tend to have high amounts of low-level movement in their day; they are working out in the fields, tending to livestock, walking everywhere.

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