An article by Gretchen Reynolds in the New York Times
cited a study that everyone should find interesting and useful.
IT’s from Arizona State University and involved a group of
volunteers who were told to do a half-hour of moderate level exercise a day
consisting of a brisk walk to determine what that did to their blood pressure –
these people were all healthy but had “prehypertenion” which is a BP between
120/80 and 140/90.
We know from previous studies that such people are not
only at significantly higher risk of ending up with high blood pressure
eventually but that such people also suffer a significant number of BP spikes
during the day and clearly that couldn’t be a healthy thing to have happen.
These volunteers were then told to break their exercise
routine into 3 10-minute sessions of similar intensity and according to this
report, the latter regime – doing the same amount and intensity of exercise but
in 3 short segments rather than one large segment – led to much better overall
levels of BP during the day, which is not only healthier but presumably is also
linked to less of a risk of eventual high BP.
Bottom line: any extra exercise is good, and curiously,
short bursts of exercise more often during the say may be better than one
prolonged session.
