To improve physical activity at the population scale and over a lifetime, it literally has to be built into the design of the cities, so people get enough exercise while walking to work or grabbing groceries.
https://cs.stanford.edu/people/jure/pubs/activity-inequality...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KPUlgSRn6e0&ab_channel=NotJu...
What works best is to find some form of exercise that you really enjoy. I will get up at 5 in the morning, skip diner, skip appointments when i get a change to exercise, just because i enjoy it so much.
In addition, what also helps is to ensure normal activities require excercise. I will walk to the shop every day for groceries, walk the dog every day, cycle into town, best if you can cycle to work.
There's way too much emphasis on gyms, workout programs, PRs, and difficult fitness. Most people just need to move a little more.
I live in an area that has a lot of walkable and bikeable things nearby. There are a lot of people who drive anyway. Some because they're older, others because they have kids, others because they have busy schedules, and some are just lazy.
So while I'm in favor of better city layout, I don't think this would be a magic solution.
> Gyms are for people who have plenty of intrinsic motivation and money and time.
There are a lot of ways to work out without a gym. You can go for a walk or run around your neighborhood or even do a lot of workout programs at home. There are many easy workout systems that don't even take a lot of time and are easy to get started if you're not in shape.
The less warm and fuzzy part of this urban-design approach is that it can't just be about making things easier to walk to, it also has to be about making them harder to drive to. For instance, by making parking limited and/or expensive. People tend not to like that idea, although I think there's a good likelihood they'd actually be happy with it if not for the meta-awareness of having "lost" parking.
It only sounds good to younger people who don't have any disabilities, kids, grandparents who want to come along, or any number of other valid reasons to walk.
It's also highly indicative of the weather where you're from. Forcing people to bike and walk everywhere sounds a lot better if you're in a moderate climate where bad weather means you need to pack a light jacket and wait for the light rain to stop. Move somewhere with harsh winters and the moralizing about people driving places stops making sense quickly.
It's often an unintended tax on the poor.
IDK maybe there's some middle ground where we beef up public transport while beefing up parking at stations.
That requires intrinsic motivation for people to want to leave their house. I'm not kidding, if jobs are going to go away we're all gonna become super fat. Thank god for Ozempic I guess.
Since starting a position that requires me in the office for 3 or more days a week, I no longer have the energy (or schedule) to attend since I spend ~120-160m in traffic. Between that and the lack of proximity to my own kitchen affecting my dietary choices, I've gained almost 40lbs in 2 years.
All of this is of course avoidable with self-discipline, but self-discipline wanes as you get more exhausted from your day.
You went from one extreme to the other. 2 to 2.5 hours of commute each day is very unusual.
Moving to a smaller city changes your job, which changes how much you are paid, which changes how close you can live to the city, and your neighbors may still suck. It's likely that you'll end up in the same soul-sucking commute life that you just left.
All in all, it's a pretty good example of modern psychological research. Bad statistics, hyped up findings and (probably) wild over-generalisation about what this tiny study means for society/the world/my research funding.
I think the biggest flaw here is around the measurement of VO2 max. So they first ask people how often they exercise (cos no-one ever lies) and then use a linear equation to map that to VO2 max. Granted, the equation has lines for age and sex, so it's not entirely useless, but if you're only going to sample 40 students then why not try to measure things a little better?
The most unintentionally hilarious thing about their methods section is that age was not normally distributed (according to a shapiro test). They sampled students, so of course it's not going to be normally distributed. Students have a well-known bias in age.
Ultimately, regardless of whether or not this finding turns out to be true (I like the idea of it, myself) this study provides absolutely no evidence for the effect.
Note: I have a PhD in psychology, but left the field a decade plus ago. I'm both horrified by this study, and also having a lot of fun poking holes in it, maybe I should try to get back into reviewing? ;)
I'm sure all of this is an inseparable mess.
But it doesn't affect the recommendation does it? Everyone should aim to be physically fit and that involves engaging in cardiorespiratory exercise.
Walked up to the bar stressed about all sorts of things, everything is expensive, car is making weird chafing noises when I make sharp turns, politics, this and that.
Did 3 sets of 5 deadlifts with a 60kg bar. Barely any weight on the bar since I didn't want to annihilate my joints. Regardless, as I finished the sets, all that stress was just gone, and it stayed away for days. I was calmer, clearer, more present.
I don't think I have fewer reasons to be stressed since getting the gym membership, but I sure am less stressed.
Deadlifts in particular, but really any full body lifts have always been a mental state degauss button for me. Doesn't matter how many problems you have before you walk up to that bar, you'll barely remember them when you're done.
https://www.uhhospitals.org/blog/articles/2023/08/running-do...
https://www.health.harvard.edu/healthbeat/will-continuing-to...
In addition to baseline heart rate, there's also some interesting stuff related to anxiety and heart rate variability. My understanding is that certain types of breathing exercises improve HRV in the short term, which is good for calming down if you're riled up, but people with good cardio health have a better baseline HRV in the first place. (Also, this has always been unintuitive to me, but higher variability is better for anxiety, not lower variability.)
The literature is bewildering because of course there are many ways to measure it. If you measure it over the course of the day it is influenced by things like the activities you do. Of course your HRV is going to be higher if you alternate intense activity that raises your heart rate with rest and since activity is so important in it I don't think it is fair to look at a whole day trace.
I think the most important phenomenon is
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayer_waves
which are associated with the metric RMSSD as described here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heart_rate_variability
This is called "SD1" in my app
https://gen5.info/demo/biofeedback/
You can use that app to increase the amplitude of your Mayer wave, what you do is breathe in when you see the wave going down and breathe in when you see the wave going up. It is a little tricky if your Mayer waves are initially weak and you might feel light-headed and think "I can't breathe" but once it settles in it is a very strong effect.
I have read a number of patents for HRV biofeedback and they all involve much more complex things that you might think would work if you hadn't tried it but that I don't believe would work having tried it.
Funny I have been taking Nebivolol, another beta blocker, and found that it drastically lowers HRV-inferred stress as measured by my Garmin watch -- I can't really say how it affects my app because I wrote it after I started on the drug.
I have a different heart rate monitor (Amazfit smartwatch, mine has their latest sensor that matches the higher end Garmin watches for accuracy, it can be used as a Bluetooth device or you can develop software to run on it directly). What topics/keywords should I look into if I want to develop the equivalent application for my hardware?
Stress relief, tiredness leading to better sleep, physiological effects of muscle gain, physiological effects of weight loss, social interaction in shared spaces, exposure to sunlight, push to improve diet in pursuit of fitness goals, better self image, social effects of becoming more physically attractive…
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0316113514
[1] well, listened to the audiobook while walking
A descriptive rewording for general understanding could be something like "We measured an association with lower anger and anxiety and higher emotional resilience in individuals with higher cardiorespiratory fitness rates."
Try group exercise studios, if you have one available. The classes are usually one hour. It makes planning very easy. Same time, every week. All you need to do is to show up.
Exercise may relieve depression as effectively as antidepressants - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46541672 - January 2026
Exercise twice as effective as anti-depressants - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39396047 - February 2024
Running from the Pain (2018) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27306725 - May 2021
Running from the Pain - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16573009 - March 2018
As Calvin's dad says, misery builds character.
It can be, especially when you're only getting started and completely out of shape (I advise mostly walking and a bit of running if thats the case). But it can also be a beautiful, relaxing, meditative and totally addictive thing - which is why tens or hundreds of millions around the world do it. That feeling of unlpeasant stress means you probably went to hard; decrease the intensity. Walk if u have to, then run a bit, then walk some more. I agree that when you're starting out - feeling like you're suffocating / out of air is not a great feeling. There's really no reason to train like that.
I was like that when I was into lifting weights. I wanted the results, but found the process incredibly grueling
With running/cycling I like the activity, not that interested in the results
This article is basically just the marshmallow test: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_marshmallow_experimen...
And 4-6 hours a week would be a low week for me =)
A few hundreds/thousands members in cities of millions doesn't equate massive popularity. Doing cardio is unpleasant to most people, I don't understand why it's so important to cardio enthusiasts to frame them as being liars or unaware? That's not convincing anyone and your energy would be better spent trying to find other ways to entice people.
Of course cardio is unpleasant to most people, 73% of the US is overweight or obese. I'm saying for healthy individuals with a small modicum of fitness (like their bodies were evolutionarily designed to do, we are the animal kingdom's top long distance runner after all), cardio is generally enjoyable.
The real problem is that most people don't feel like this is true. It really takes a solid 6ish months of earnest effort (AT LEAST 3x per week, probably more) to develop cardiovascular fitness. For some people, it'll take even longer.
I run an average of 6 days per week for the past 10+ years. At this point running is just about the easiest thing I do, it doesn't take any mental fortitude at all to do it. It wasn't always that way though, I used to dread it.
I don't think people need to suffer through 6 months just to start enjoy running. Yes when beginning running you suck (and also prone to injury); you basically have no zone 1-2 since your'e so out of shape, your zone 2 is basically a fast walk. So for newbies who train like that all runs become a zone 3 or even 4 - when you're totally new to running. No surprise they many time a) hate it b) get injured
I advise newbies to walk and run and try to keep HR very very controllable until you build up fitness. That should be both more fun and also more sustainable injury wise.
If you "know" you are physically unfit you are quick to anger and aggression because you potentially need to act like that to not need to rely on physical fitness if it came to needing it? I.e. you need to deter others through your aggression rather than relying on fitness if it came to a fight?
Or alternatively the other perspective if you "know" you are fit you can keep the stress hormones low safe in the knowledge that if it comes to it you've got the fitness to handle a fight?
...Or perhaps none of that!
Interesting.
If you have lower capacity, your body feels bad and this is reflected in your emotional and cognitive state.
It’s a core part of the scientific process: “All else being equal…”
if you don't believe me, take one look at a construction site and the workers on it.
More apropos, have you ever met an anxious construction worker? I haven’t.