Movement Matters: Your Body Had a Day Too

Every thing we do Counts!

In The Cost of Never Stopping, we spent a lot of time talking about how busy we have become, but one of the most important things we discovered was that being busy doesn't necessarily mean being physically active. We can have an exhausting day mentally and emotionally while our bodies have barely changed position, or we can have a day in which our bodies have been working almost constantly while our minds are dealing with their own demands at the same time. Both people can arrive home at five o'clock saying, “I'm exhausted,” but what their bodies need next may be completely different.

This is why I think we need to stop treating movement as though everybody is starting from the same place. We hear that sitting is bad for us, walking is good for us, strength training is important, and we should reach a certain number of steps every day, and much of that is useful information, but it becomes much less useful when we apply the same answer to every body regardless of what that body has already done all day. Before deciding what movement we need next, maybe the first thing we should do is look at the day our body has already had.

If You've Been Sitting Most of the Day

For many people, the workday now involves an enormous amount of sitting. We sit at a computer, sit through meetings, sit in the car, and then arrive home feeling genuinely exhausted even though physically we haven't moved very much. This is where mental exhaustion can fool us, because when the mind is tired our instinct may be to put the body on the sofa too, when the two parts of us may actually need completely different things.

If you've spent several hours sitting, your body has been holding many of the same positions for a long time. The hips have remained bent, the large muscles of the legs haven't been doing very much, the neck and shoulders may have been holding the head in essentially the same position, and the normal muscular contractions and changes in circulation that come with moving around have happened less often. In that situation, getting up and moving isn't necessarily another demand being added to an exhausting day. Movement may actually be the change your body has been waiting for.

And this is where movement can become part of the mental break rather than another item on the exercise list. You don't necessarily need to turn on a workout video, track the walk, or put something educational into your ears. Go outside and walk around the yard. Stretch while the kettle boils. Take the dog down the road. Let the body start doing something while, for a few minutes, the mind is asked to do less.

If your mind has been running while your body has been sitting, the two may need opposite things: less stimulation for the mind and more movement for the body.

 

 

If You've Been Standing Most of the Day

Now consider someone whose work keeps them on their feet. Maybe you work behind a food counter, in a shop, at a salon, in health care, or somewhere else where sitting down for any length of time isn't part of the day. You may walk thousands of steps and still finish work with aching feet, tired legs, and a sore lower back.

Telling that person to “get more steps” completely misses the point.

Standing all day isn't necessarily the same thing as receiving varied, balanced movement. You can spend hours upright while repeatedly loading the same areas of the feet, legs, and back, particularly when much of your work happens within a relatively small space. If that's your day, what your body needs when you get home may be to unload. Sit down. Put your feet up for a while. Change the position you've been holding. Move the ankles and feet differently, stretch areas that feel tight, or lie down and allow the muscles that have been keeping you upright to stop working so hard.

Rest in that situation isn't laziness, and it isn't failing to exercise.

You are responding to the physical work your body has already done.

If Your Work Is Physically Demanding

Then there are people whose days contain substantial physical work — lifting, carrying, climbing, bending, pushing, pulling, or working outside for hours. Their problem isn't necessarily a lack of activity at all. Their bodies may already have received more physical load before supper than someone else's body receives during a scheduled workout.

This is where the idea that everybody needs to add more exercise can become particularly unhelpful. If your muscles and joints have already been heavily used all day, adding another demanding workout simply because you believe a healthy person is supposed to exercise every evening may not be what your body needs. Recovery is part of physical health too. Food, fluids, changing into comfortable positions, slower movement, stretching what feels tight and getting enough sleep can be just as intentional as deciding to exercise.

The question isn't, Did I do my workout today?

The better question may be;

What kind of physical demand has my body already experienced, and what would balance that demand now?

If You've Been Doing the Same Thing Over and Over

There is another kind of physical day that can be easy to overlook because it doesn't fit neatly into sitting, standing, or heavy labour: repetition. You may use your hands all day, reach in the same direction, bend over the same work surface, drive for hours, or perform one particular movement hundreds of times. You have certainly been active, but you've been asking particular muscles and joints to do much more than others.

For that person, the answer may not be more movement or less movement but rather different movement. Change position. Move in another direction. Straighten what has been bent, open what has been held forward, use the other parts of the body that haven't been doing very much, and give the repeatedly used areas a chance to do something different.

This is why movement needs to be more intelligent than simply counting how much of it we did. Sometimes the body doesn't need more. It needs variety.

So, What Did Your Body Have Too Much Of Today?

This is where all of these different people finally come back together, because there isn't one movement prescription that makes sense for everybody at the end of the day.

If you've been sitting, you may need to move.

If you've been standing, you may need to unload.

If you've been doing heavy physical work, you may need recovery.

If you've been repeating the same movements, you may need variety.

And tomorrow your answer may be different.

That is exactly why the question we've been using throughout this Wellness Letter continues to work so well:

What have I had too much of today — and what haven't I had enough of?

Only this time, ask your body.

Before automatically doing what your watch, exercise plan, routine,

or somebody on the internet says you should do, take a moment to notice what your body has actually experienced today. Not what everybody else's body needs. Not what you needed yesterday.

What does this body need after this day?

That is where I think Movement Matters should begin.

Movement Is Not Always About Doing More

Once we begin paying attention to what our bodies have actually been doing all day, movement starts to become a much more interesting conversation than how many steps we've taken or whether we've completed a workout. Exercise is important, and there are very good reasons to build strength, maintain cardiovascular fitness, and keep our bodies capable as we age, but that isn't really what we're talking about here. We're talking about the movement that happens throughout an ordinary day and whether what we do next gives the body something different from what it has already been experiencing.

If Your Day Has Been Mostly Sitting

If you have spent much of the day sitting at a computer, driving, doing paperwork, or working in any other position that keeps you relatively still for hours, you can arrive at the end of the day feeling genuinely exhausted, while your body has actually had very little movement. I think this is one of the harder things to recognize because tired feels like tired. We don't necessarily stop to separate mental exhaustion from physical fatigue, so when the brain says, "I've had enough," the natural response is often to put the body on the sofa, too.

But this is one of those times when listening to the body may require us to look a little deeper than whether we feel tired. If the legs have barely worked, the hips have been bent for hours, the shoulders and neck have held essentially the same position, and we've spent most of the day looking at something a few feet in front of us, the body may not need another two hours in a chair. It may need the exact opposite of what the exhausted mind is asking for:

The mind may need less to do while the body needs more.

This is where movement can become part of stopping rather than another demand. We can get up and walk outside without putting anything in our ears, stretch without turning on a video, work in the garden for a few minutes, or take the dog down the road without using the walk to return phone calls. The body begins moving while the mind gets a break from information, decisions, and other people needing something from us. We aren't asking ourselves to accomplish more. We are simply changing what has been happening for the last several hours.

There is another particularly useful time for this kind of movement, and it takes us back to what we talked about in our nutrition article: after we eat. When we eat, glucose from the meal begins entering the bloodstream, and our muscles are one of the major places where that glucose can be used. Research has found that even light activity after eating can help reduce the rise in blood glucose that normally follows a meal compared with remaining seated, which means movement after eating doesn't need to look like exercise to have physiological value.

This is where ordinary life can do the job beautifully. Clear the dishes, put the leftovers away, wipe the counters, take the dog outside, or walk around the yard for a few minutes before settling into the evening. We tend to dismiss those little pieces of activity because they don't feel important enough to “count,” but the body doesn't care whether we call it a workout. The muscles know that they went from being still to working. For someone whose day has already contained far too much sitting, that ordinary movement after a meal can be a very useful place to begin.

If Your Day Has Been Mostly on Your Feet

Now we can leave the sitting person there and look at a completely different day. If you have spent six or eight hours behind a counter, working in retail, cutting hair, caring for people, or doing another job that keeps you on your feet for most of the day, you probably don't need anyone telling you to stand up more often. You may have walked a considerable number of steps, but you may also have spent long periods loading the same areas of your feet, legs and lower back while working within a relatively small space.

For you, bringing the body back toward balance may mean unloading it. Sitting down is not the enemy when you've already been standing for hours. Putting your feet up for a little while, moving the ankles and toes, changing the position of your hips and back or lying down and allowing the muscles that have held you upright all day to release some of their work may be exactly what is missing.

After some recovery, you may want to move again, but it doesn't necessarily need to be more of what you've already done. A slow walk outside may feel wonderful because it gives you a different rhythm from standing behind a counter, while stretching or moving the body through positions you haven't used all day may feel better than trying to reach another step target. The goal isn't to become inactive because you've been on your feet. It's to stop assuming that more standing and more steps are automatically the answer to a body that has already had plenty of both.

And there is a mental side to this kind of day as well. Someone who works with the public may have been physically standing while also answering questions, listening, smiling, solving problems, and responding to people for hours. When that person finally sits down, they may need the body and the mind to have less asked of them for a little while. Sometimes sitting in silence with your feet up isn't something you need to justify. It may simply be an intelligent response to the day you've actually had.

If Your Day Has Been Physically Demanding

A physically demanding day is different again. If you've spent hours lifting, carrying, climbing, digging, bending, pushing, pulling, or doing other substantial physical work, your body has already received a training load whether or not any of it happened in a gym. Muscles have worked, joints have been loaded, energy has been used, and tissues have been repeatedly asked to produce force, so arriving home and deciding you still need to complete a hard workout because your exercise schedule says Thursday is workout day may not always make sense.

This is where I think we need to give recovery the same respect we give exercise. Bodies become stronger through a combination of appropriate physical challenge and the opportunity to recover from that challenge. Food matters here. Fluids matter. Sleep matters. Changing out of the positions and movements used during the workday matters, and slower movement can still feel wonderful because it keeps the body moving without asking it to produce the same intensity again.

That doesn't mean everyone with a physical job should stop exercising. A repetitive job doesn't necessarily build balanced strength, flexibility or cardiovascular fitness, and purposeful exercise can still provide things the workday doesn't. But the exercise has to be considered in the context of the physical load that is already there.

The question isn't whether exercise is good for us. The question is whether more physical demand is what this particular body needs after this particular day.

If Your Day Has Been Repetitive

Then there is the person whose body hasn't necessarily been still or heavily loaded, but has been doing the same thing over and over again. Maybe you've been using your hands for hours, reaching in the same direction, driving, bending over a work surface, or repeating one particular movement hundreds of times. You have certainly moved, but some parts of the body have been asked to contribute far more than others.

In that situation, balance may come from variety rather than more activity or more rest. Straighten what has been bent for hours. Open the chest and shoulders if you've been working forward. Move the spine in directions it hasn't travelled all afternoon. Give the hands a break if they've been gripping, and use the larger parts of the body that haven't had much to do. The idea isn't to prescribe a particular stretch for every occupation; it is to recognize that bodies generally benefit from not being held or worked in exactly the same way indefinitely.

This is one of the reasons I don't want Movement Matters to become another article about doing more exercise. Sometimes more is exactly what is missing, particularly for someone who has been sitting all day. Sometimes the body has already done plenty and needs recovery, and sometimes the amount of movement isn't really the issue at all because what is missing is a different kind of movement.

Finding Your Way Back Toward Balance

Once we look at movement this way, we don't need to compare our day with anyone else's. The person who sat for eight hours doesn't need to feel guilty because somebody else walked fifteen thousand steps at work, and the person who spent the day lifting and carrying doesn't need to complete another workout because somebody online says everyone needs to exercise after work. Their bodies have different days, so it makes perfect sense that they may need different things next.

And this brings us right back to the question that has become the thread running through this entire Wellness Letter:

What have I had too much of today — and what haven't I had enough of?

When we ask that question physically, we begin to get much better information. Have I been sitting so long that what I really need is to get outside and move? Have I been standing for hours and need to take the weight off my feet? Have I worked my body hard and need to feed it and let it recover? Have I repeated the same movement all day and need to move differently?

There isn't one correct answer because there isn't one kind of day, and there isn't even one correct answer for the same person every day.

Maybe that is what listening to our bodies actually looks like. It isn't simply doing whatever feels easiest in the moment, and it isn't ignoring good advice about exercise and physical health.

It is taking good information and putting it beside the information our own body is giving us, then deciding what makes sense today.

Sometimes that will mean getting up when we would rather stay on the sofa.

Sometimes it will mean sitting down without feeling guilty about it.

And sometimes it will mean realizing that the body doesn't need more or less.

It just needs something different.

This Week's Movement Matters Challenge: Read Your Body Before You Move It

For the next seven days, we're not giving you an exercise target, a step count, or another workout to fit into your schedule. Instead, once or twice during your day, stop for a moment before automatically deciding what comes next and ask yourself:

What has my body had too much of today — and what hasn't it had enough of?

Then respond to what you actually notice.

· Been sitting for hours? Get up, stretch, walk outside, or move around for a few minutes.

· Been standing most of the day? Take the weight off your feet, change position, and give the muscles that have been holding you upright some recovery.

· Been doing physical work? Your body may need food, fluids, slower movement, and rest rather than another workout.

· Been repeating the same movements? Change direction and use parts of your body that haven't been doing the work.

· Mind exhausted but body barely moved? Try moving without adding more input — no podcast, phone call, or video. Let the body move while the mind gets less to process.

And after a meal, particularly if you're someone who spends much of the day sitting, try adding a few minutes of ordinary movement before settling back down. Clear the kitchen, take the dog outside, walk around the yard, or take a short walk. It doesn't have to qualify as exercise to have value.

At the End of the Week, Ask Yourself One Thing

Did I feel differently when I chose movement or rest according to the day I had, rather than simply doing what I normally do?

Maybe you discover that the ten-minute walk you thought you were too tired for actually helped after sitting all afternoon. Maybe putting your feet up after a day of standing was exactly what you needed. Maybe you realize that some of your exhaustion is mental while your body is asking to move, or that some days you genuinely need to stop.

There is no perfect result we're looking for.

The challenge this week is simply to notice first and respond second.

Because the more familiar we become with what our own bodies are telling us, the less we have to live by somebody else's idea of what we should need.