Movement is life: we’re sitting ourselves to death
Movement is life — so wrote the philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer as early as 1851, referring to Aristotle. Today, over 170 years later, we are quite literally sitting ourselves sick. Sitting is the new smoking, and your body pays for it every day.
Why movement is life
Schopenhauer described it like this: inside the organism there is incessant motion. The heart beats in systole and diastole, and with twenty-eight beats drives the entire mass of blood through the greater and lesser circulation. The lungs pump like a steam engine. The intestines twist in peristaltic motion. The glands constantly absorb and secrete. Even the brain is in a double motion, with every pulse of blood and every breath.
When external movement is missing — as happens with a sedentary lifestyle — a glaring contradiction arises between outward stillness and inner turmoil. Inner life needs a little outward support. Schopenhauer put it simply: even trees need the wind to move them in order to grow.
What has changed in 25 years
20-25 years ago, daily energy expenditure was covered through physical work. For many people it was a natural part of everyday life — no choice involved, no separate training plan. Today, physical activity is more of a question of awareness. We can call it training, sport or simply moving about — the substance is the same: consciously expended energy.
Unfortunately, one basic truth goes unrecognized: the greater the comfort, the greater our awareness must be. Comfort in itself is not a solution. Driving a car, work done by machines, a virtual life — all of it means the body is left standing still. And a body that stands still starts to break down. Our understanding of how a human being works as a whole simply refuses to keep pace with the aspects that have made life more comfortable.
What happens when movement disappears
Our body is a process. Blood circulates, the heart beats, cells wear out and renew, the lungs ventilate, the nervous system relays impulses. This is metabolism. Old structures are broken down and removed. Movement speeds up and regulates this process — clearing out waste and building the new.
When something is left unexcreted or is excreted too slowly, it starts to damage the organism. This applies to everything from calcification of the blood vessels to general obesity. Eat more every day than you burn through daily activity, for 1-2 years in a row. See what happens.
What happens when water is left standing in a flower vase? It starts to stink. The same phenomenon occurs in a similar way in an inactive human organism. Muscles waste away, fat gets deposited, toxic compounds build up in the cells, the heart stays weak, blood vessels calcify. If we don’t move, we no longer cycle through all of our functional systems. We don’t recover or renew. Quite simply, we wither.
Movement and dietary balance
When it comes to human obesity, exactly the same law of physics applies that everyone remembers from school: energy is neither created nor destroyed; it can only change from one form to another and be transferred from one body to another.
Excess food energy from oversized portions goes nowhere other than into our body. To keep energy in balance, there are two ways: eat less or move more. Movement is a handy tool for turning the law of conservation of energy to our advantage. And that is not the only purpose of movement — far from it — but it is one of the simplest and most immediate results we get.
The calmer the activity, the longer you have to keep at it for the benefits to show. If your activity is limited to walking, you have to do a lot of it, and every day. Some concrete numbers: a 100 kg man burns on average 300 kcal walking at 5 km/h. A 300-400 g slice of cake can contain at least 800 kcal. Draw your own conclusions.
In practice you often hear: “I’ve walked the steps recommended by the “X” app today, but I’m still gaining weight”. If that’s the case, then you’re actually not expending enough and you’re eating more than you need. It really is that simple. Nobody in a magazine or on a website can say, set in stone, how much you need to move. It depends on what you eat and how much.
How to bring more movement into your day
Since today’s life demands little movement, we have to consciously keep ourselves active. One good way is, of course, going to a fitness center 3-4 times a week. But there are other options too — what matters in the end is your lifestyle as a whole.
- Go for a walk every free evening, for 1-2 hours. Set small goals: I’ll try walking 5-6 km every evening for 10 days (or 2 weeks) — near home, in nature, on a fitness trail. Invite a friend along and throw down a challenge.
- On weekends, take on longer walks. Walk from one end of town to the other. Have someone drive you to a neighboring town 10-15 km away and walk back from there.
- On weekends, go hiking in nature together with your children.
- Go swimming, ice skating, skiing, cycling — choose whatever suits the season.
- If you can, walk to work. It’s especially odd to see people in a small town drive a couple of blocks to work.
- If you have a desk job, stand as much as possible — at work, at events, in meetings. Standing up in itself encourages movement.
- At a fitness center you don’t have to start in the gym — on the contrary, that gets added once the kilos have come off or your performance has improved. Make aerobic sessions interesting: rowing machine on Monday, treadmill on Tuesday, exercise bike on Thursday, pool on Friday. Variety helps you stay consistent.
Summary: movement is a choice
Nothing can make up for inactivity except activity. No matter how technologically advanced our society becomes, biology hasn’t changed. Humans are made to move. The choice is ours: either we understand this and suffer fewer health problems, or we don’t and die early, with overweight, asthma attacks, allergies, diabetes and joint problems already being diagnosed in children.
Movement is an essential component of the foundation for a good quality of life. Movement means expending energy. Expending energy means getting tired. Getting tired means quality night sleep, and that sets the tone for the entire day that follows. In the morning you have an appetite, the day gets going without a hitch, and you have energy and drive. Disrupt one link and the whole chain suffers.
Unfortunately, the consequences of too little movement aren’t immediate, which is also why they get ignored for so long. But the body keeps score. Every hour you sit goes on the tab. And the reverse is true as well: every hour you move counts. I’m deeply convinced that our quality of life can only be as high as possible if we take care of ourselves as a whole, rather than as if the brain and body were separate from each other.
Author: Janar Rückenbrg
Come and train! ArtGym
