The idea that you need to work out at the gym for at least thirty minutes every day and spend money on a membership/exercise machine/bike/treadmill was born out of the fitness industrial complex and the warped reality of the internet. One of the reasons we get such surprised looks when we say we don’t exercise is because of cognitive dissonance. After all, here we are in the wellness world, but what we do doesn’t align with people’s ideas of what it means to be healthy. That’s because they mostly understand what a healthy look looks like on social media: a challenging home gym with Peloton, matching sets of sportswear and, of course, rock-solid abs.

In reality, physical fitness and health do not require as much as we think. Embrace the world’s best dementia cure: walking. A study of 78,430 adults living in the UK found that taking around 10,000 steps per day (9,826 to be exact) was correlated with 51% reduction in dementia risk1. What’s more, just 3,800 steps per day was associated with a 25% reduced risk of dementia, and those who walked at a higher intensity (cadence) were associated with an even lower risk.

Every other day there seems to be a headline in the New York Times Well, a section that could be accepted Onion headline: “Strengthening Muscles in 3 Seconds a Day”, “Can 4 Seconds of Exercise Make a Difference?” or “a 2-minute walk can prevent harm from sitting.” As crazy as it sounds, these actual headlines reflect a dramatic shift in the scientific literature over the past decade, which suggests that shorter bursts of aerobic activity performed consistently are just as effective at promoting health as mindless cardio training for a long time. time This is good news for anyone who lives in the time-crunched world of constant lunch meetings, family, friends, and work commitments.