photo by Mabel Amber
People are becoming more sedentary than ever. Here is how a sedentary lifestyle can negatively affect your health, and some insight on how to improve your ability and desire to be more active.
I hate to say it,
but in this day and age, people are becoming more sedentary than ever.
For far too many of us, work consists of sitting at a desk all day, glued to a computer screen, and by the time we get home from our commute, the last thing we want to do is exercise.
This creates a vicious cycle where our work causes us to suffer from things like pain, lack of motivation, and low energy, but we don’t want to do anything about it because the way we work makes us feel lousy most of the time.
But having a greater understanding of the body and how our behaviour affects it can help to put things in perspective. And luckily, there are some simple ways to help improve the way we feel, and make us more inclined to live an active lifestyle.
So, in this article, I’m going to discuss how a sedentary lifestyle can negatively affect your health, and share some insight on how to improve your ability and desire to be more active.
How a Sedentary Lifestyle Can Negatively Affect Your Health
“Honestly, I don’t like walking!”
Does that sound like something you’d say?
If it does, you should know that you’re not alone, as this is one of the most common things I hear from my clients!
Often, when I’m observing photo comparative blood cell analysis results with my clients, and I see an imbalance in the lymphatic system, it may prompt me to ask, “How active are you?”
Long story short, after having a conversation about their day-to-day activity levels, many of them tell me that they can’t stand walking, and they’re not fans of being active.
Typically, they’re not against being active for no good reason, and their aversion can be attributed to some sort of health problem, whether that’s pain, lack of energy, or something else entirely.
No doubt, one of the most common problems we face in our lives is our struggle to stay active.
Unfortunately, most of us live sedentary lives, spending the bulk of our days sitting at desks in front of computers, with long commutes to and from work.
This can make us feel tired and create a lack of motivation, and all these things play a part in terms of how well our lymphatic system is performing.
So, when I hear this sort of response, it motivates me to share a technique that can help to make activity more easy and enjoyable!
I’ll get into that in a minute, but first of all, let’s take a closer look at the lymphatic system and the role it plays in how many of us tend to feel stiff, sore, achy, and tired.
The lymphatic system:
● Acts as a drainage apparatus
● Helps to clean the body of toxins
● Is a part of the circulatory system
● Empties into the veins leading to the heart
● Flows only in one direction (towards the neck region)
● Produces antibodies and white blood cells, which help to fight infection
● Supplies hormones, proteins, fats, and lymphocytes to all the cells in your body
For me, the most interesting thing about the lymphatic system is that if your muscles aren’t moving, your lymphatic system isn’t moving either!
Unlike the vascular system, which gets pumped by the beating of your heart and moves in a downward flow, the lymphatic system moves in an upward flow, and it only moves when you move.
So, the more active you are, the more active your lymphatic system is, and that can help to reduce pain by moving toxins out of your tissue spaces.
This explains why staying active is so important for joint mobility!
How Your Gait Relates to Your Health
If you don’t enjoy walking or other forms of physical activity because of things like lack of energy, poor coordination, or pain, you can improve these afflictions by working on your gait.
But what is your gait?
Well, according to the Oxford Advanced American Dictionary, the term gait is defined as “a way of walking”.
To go into a bit more detail, your gait is what helps you to coordinate physical movement while you’re walking, and if you work on it, you can experience a more enjoyable, easy, and free-flowing walk.
According to a clinical guide on gait disorders published in The Central European Journal of Medicine, “Human gait depends on a complex interplay of major parts of the nervous, musculoskeletal and cardiorespiratory systems.”
This guide states that an individual’s gait pattern tends to be influenced by several aspects, including things like age, mood, personality, and sociocultural factors.
It also points out that the speed at which older adults prefer to walk can be used as an indicator of their general health and their chances of survival.
In addition, it says that in order to walk safely, an individual’s cognition needs to be intact, and they need to have “executive control”, which means they’re able to conduct goal-directed behaviour that requires the ability to carry out complex mental processes.
More importantly, it states that gait-related disorders tend to lead to falls, injuries, and a “loss of personal freedom”, and all of these factors can contribute to a significant reduction in quality of life.
And according to an article from Physiopedia, the way a person walks can be used as “an essential part of the diagnosis of various neurologic disorders”, and can also be used to assess patients’ progress during their rehabilitation and recovery from a range of injuries and conditions.
How to Stimulate Your Gait Reflexes
Your gait reflexes are located on the top of your foot where the toes meet the rest of your foot.
Stimulating these reflexes can be very beneficial, especially for those of us who don’t like to be active.
In order to stimulate the gait reflexes, you have to firmly massage the areas located between the tendons on the top of the foot and the side of the big toe.
You can do this by bracing underneath the foot, while rubbing the tendons on the side and top of the foot. If your foot feels sore, release pressure and then work within your pain tolerance so it feels more comfortable.
There are several instances when you might want to stimulate your gait reflexes. For example, it doesn’t hurt to do this before you want to exercise, or during exercise.
It’s also a good idea to stimulate your gait reflexes if:
● You’re suffering from a lack of energy
● You don’t feel as alert as you’d like to be
● You find yourself tripping over little things
● You’re not feeling excited about movement
● You have a change in the direction of your life
● You feel like you have a lack of spring in your step
Are you interested in finding out more about techniques like this one? If you want to learn more, you should sign up for my Touch for Health classes. These classes explain several methods for relieving stress, aches, and pains, including things like massage, acupressure, and more! Classes start at the end of May, so make sure to book your spot today!
To Your Health,
Christine Plumb
