Researchers at the U-M School of Kinesiology wanted to understand the relationship between physical activity and workplace burnout, says Michele Marenus, a former doctoral student whose adviser was the study’s principal investigator, Weiyun Chen.

Chen is an associate professor of applied exercise science and director of the Physical Activity & Health Laboratory, where the research was conducted. The study was part of a major research project led by Marenus at the PAHL.

The study’s implications extend to workplace dynamics such as team engagement, turnover, morale and the “subtler yet impactful phenomenon called ‘quiet quitting,’” the researchers wrote. Their research did not directly examine quiet quitting, a term that was recently coined to describe employees who put in the minimum required effort at work, but do not resign.

The root cause is thought to be burnout, which is characterized by three primary symptoms: extreme fatigue, a sense of doubt and disengagement toward work, and feelings of inadequacy and unproductiveness.

The researchers surveyed 520 full-time employees about their physical activity and workplace burnout. They divided the sample into low-, medium- and high-activity groups, then looked at differences across the three subscales of the burnout inventory: emotional exhaustion, personal accomplishment and depersonalization to understand the ways in which employees felt job burnout.

Among participants, 23% reported low activity, 60% moderate activity and 25% high levels of activity.

“The findings illuminate the positive impact of physical activity on workplace outlook and personal satisfaction. Employees are aware that burnout is an enormous problem for their workforce,” said Marenus, now a research scientist at Personify Health and an adjunct faculty member at George Mason University.

Findings include:

• The moderate-activity group was less emotionally exhausted than the low-activity group.
• The low-activity group felt more personal accomplishment than both the high and moderate groups.
• There was no significant difference in depersonalization (when employees no longer see customers as human beings) scores among the three groups.
• High-intensity activity did not reduce emotional exhaustion or enhance personal accomplishment more than moderate activity.

“Employees experiencing low physical activity may feel less engaged and motivated, gradually disengaging from their roles without formally resigning, resulting in reduced productivity and a lack of enthusiasm for their work,” said study first author Brandon Albedry, a former research assistant at the PAHL laboratory who is now a client solutions analyst at Addepar.

The fact that the high-intensity exercise group did not see greater benefits than the moderate activity group challenges the notion that more is better, the researchers say.

We don’t need to engage in crazy amounts of activity to see benefits. Feeling the pressure to do so may actually cause a negative impact.”

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Michele Marenus

The takeaway for employers is that promoting exercise can lead to happier, healthier workers, as well as lower employee turnover, higher productivity and cost reductions. Accommodations like walking desks, onsite workout facilities, gym subsidies and flexible schedules can help.

Employees should remember that they don’t need high-intensity exercise to feel better—moderate activities like brisk walking or cycling can reduce burnout symptoms, the researchers say. Intensity of physical activity is important because moderate activity is more sustainable and has less risk of injury.

“Moderate to vigorous physical activity (also) promotes an increase in a level of protein called brain-derived neurotrophic factor,” Marenus said. “BDNF improves important things like brain health, cognitive function and mental health. This protein stays high in the brain even for a period after MVPA, which can benefit an individuals’ overall health.”

A few years ago, personal trainer Anna Maltby cut back on exercise as she juggled work with being a new mother. Like some of her clients, she suddenly lacked the time and energy to work out the way she used to. She could manage no more than several 15-minute workouts per week, “but I actually felt like I got my minimum effective dose for that stage of my life,” she says.

Many of us feel like we’re too busy for exercise. Others actively avoid it. But research shows that doing at least some exercise is important for longer, healthier lives without dementia, heart disease, diabetes, or cancer. Other advantages are reaped right away: we’re happier and more energetic on a daily basis.  

So, just how little exercise can you get away with, while still getting these benefits? Here’s how low you can go, according to experts. Getting there may require changing how we define exercise in the first place.

Meet the minimum guidelines

Official guidelines from the World Health Organization, the U.S. government, and other groups give adults a few choices for how low they can go with aerobic physical activity on a weekly basis. One option is getting at least 75 to 150 minutes of “vigorous” activity, meaning your level of huffing and puffing makes conversation difficult, and your heart rate rises to about 80% of its peak. Another option takes longer, but it’s less intense: 150 to 300 minutes of “moderate” activity, at 60-70% of your maximum heart rate. 

You could also combine just enough vigorous and moderate exercise so they add up to the weekly minimum. Because tougher workouts are especially health-giving, they count more toward your weekly goal; every minute of vigorous activity is equivalent to two minutes of moderate activity. (This means that if you got 50 minutes of vigorous activity, that would count 100 minutes toward the 150-minute requirement for moderate activity. Then, you’d only need to add 50 minutes of moderate activity to meet your weekly minimum.)

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These bare-minimum amounts deliver the biggest rewards for the fewest drops of sweat, according to decades of research. “If you look at the statistical curve, the increase in benefits is most dramatic” when these minimums are achieved, says Regina Guthold, an epidemiologist at the WHO. If you go higher—over 300 minutes of moderate exercise, for example—you’ll keep accruing greater health, but the gains become smaller. 

Similar thresholds also support mental health, says Mary de Groot, a psychologist and associate professor of medicine at Indiana University School of Medicine. In a study with more than one million people, those who exercised 120 to 360 minutes per week had the best mental health, compared to those who did more or less. 

Save time with hybrid workouts

But here’s the catch: On top of cardio, strength training is a must, no less than twice per week. If you neglect it, some unsavory effects of older age may await you, like muscle atrophy and osteoporosis. 

Now, the time-saving loophole: strength training can be mixed into cardio sessions. By using your own body weight as resistance (instead of heavier barbells), you can do more repetitions, upping your heart rate along with building muscle. Seniors in particular should focus on this “multicomponent activity,” the guidelines say, including moves that improve balance to help reduce the risk of falls.  

Cardio-strength workouts include pushups, Turkish get-ups, mountain climbers, burpees, air squats, and lunges. With this hybrid approach, you could still wrap up exercise for the week in as few as 75 minutes.

Skip days, not months

Work gets busy; parenthood, vacations, and colds disrupt routines. We often need to skip exercise for several days in a row. (After all, we’re only human—not exercise robots.) So, how do the weekly minimums translate into everyday life? Must we bust a move every single day or face imminent demise? 

Thankfully, no, Guthold says, as long as you catch up later in the week. “Weekend warriors get the same benefits as those who are active every day for less time,” she says. “There’s no evidence it needs to be spread out.”

How about if you skip a week or two at a time? Well, if you reach the minimum amount of physical activity for only, say, three out of every four weeks, that’s much better than never reaching it. “It’s normal for people to have highs and lows with physical activity, even if they love it,” adds Stella Volpe, a professor of exercise and nutrition at Virginia Tech and president of the American College of Sports Medicine, another influential organization that publishes activity guidelines.

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“Life happens,” says Katrina Piercy, an exercise physiologist at HHS who leads development of the Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans. “But if you’re working toward meeting the guidelines in a typical week, you’re going to see benefits.” 

Even on your off-weeks, just five minutes of activity per day will send more blood pumping through the body, which supports health by preventing blood vessels from stiffening. It could also improve blood sugar and sleep quality, Piercy says. But the more weeks that pass without meeting the guidelines, the more your health may eventually suffer, notes Volpe. Just two weeks straight being very sedentary causes aerobic fitness and muscle mass to decline significantly, potentially paving the way for disease. 

Combine exercise with movement breaks

Stay still for over an hour, and your feet may start tingling as the blood pools there, compelling you to get up and stretch. This light movement is important, but for most people, it’s not taxing enough to count toward their weekly exercise minimum. So here’s another way to save time on exercise: use these breaks to get your heart rate up so it qualifies as moderate or even vigorous exercise.

Studies show that the more movement breaks you take, the lower your risk of death (at least anytime soon), says Keith Diaz, an associate professor of behavioral medicine at Columbia University Medical Center. It’s necessary to take these breaks even if you also exercise. “The other 98% of the day you’re not moving does matter,” Diaz says. 

To save time, you can use four or five of these breaks as mini-exercise sessions, each about five minutes long. If you’re healthy enough to ramp up the intensity, try one-minute exercise snacks, 20 times per week or more, says Martin Gibala, a professor of kinesiology at McMaster University, who wrote a book called The One-Minute Workout. That could mean walking quickly or running up some stairs, depending on your fitness level. “Your total time spent exercising will be reduced, and there’s the simultaneous benefit of breaking up periods of prolonged sedentary behavior,” Gibala says. 

We shouldn’t “blow off exercise completely” on days we’re too busy for one long workout, Gibala says. “Exercise doesn’t have to be this special thing you do at a special place.” In a study with over 25,000 people wearing fitness trackers, Gibala and colleagues found that people who didn’t formally exercise but got three separate bouts of vigorous activity, each lasting only 1 to 2 minutes, during their everyday lives lowered their risk of dying from cancer by about 40% and heart disease by 50% over a period of about seven years.

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Diaz found that adults who engaged in five minutes of walking every 30 minutes improved their blood sugar, blood pressure, mood, and energy levels. Taking such breaks actually leads to more productivity at work, not less, according to Diaz’s preliminary findings. “Humans tend to have trouble focusing for longer than 20 minutes at a time anyway,” he notes.  

You could have speed-walking meetings, or run from your office to the coffee shop. Volpe, the ACSM president, has a friend who watches TV with his kid but mutes the commercials, puts on music, and dances with the kid until the show resumes. “You’ll be amazed how good you feel by dancing a little instead of getting a snack,” Volpe says. 

Piercy, the HHS physiologist, turns supermarket shopping into races, timing herself while carrying her groceries in a basket for muscle-strengthening. “Some days I don’t have a formal workout,” she says, “but I grocery shopped, or found other ways to multitask some activity.” 

Redefine “exercise”

Here’s the ultimate hack to reduce exercise time: find physical activities that don’t feel like exercise at all. (Warning: This may involve being social, having fun, and bonding with nature.) For example, you could ask a friend to join sessions of high-intensity interval training at a park. HIIT mixes bursts of activity with recovery breaks. When you can talk with people you like during the rest intervals, exercise drudgery transforms into a mobile hangout. 

Sports like tennis count as HIIT. So does interval walking if it gets your heart rate up. The kicker is that the recovery intervals also go toward your minimum weekly exercise goal. “The rest intervals certainly count toward total minutes because your heart rate stays high during the breaks,” Volpe says. Magically, your 75 minutes of vigorous exercise could drop below 40.

You may forget you’re exercising when distracted by the park’s natural beauty, leading to more benefits. “The improvements in mood…are even better when people exercise outside,” Diaz says, “away from their tech.” So-called “green exercise” improves emotions and self-esteem, and protects against depression, de Groot says.

Find your ME

This game of exercise limbo—how low can you go—involves more than the official guidelines. Your level of minimum exercise—your “ME”—depends on who you are. “When working with people on physical activity plans, the first thing I do is encourage them to think about their goals and values,” de Groot says.

If you prioritize longevity and defying your age, your self-chosen ME will be higher than others’ minimums. “The more you exercise, the longer you’ll live free of chronic disease,” Diaz says. “But that’s not everyone’s goal.” Some care more about finding a sustainable amount that helps them feel good in the present moment, Diaz says, so they can carry groceries or climb steps without fatigue or pain.

Here are some factors to consider in setting your ME: 

Fitness trackers and mood apps can show how different MEs translate into heart health, sleep quality, and positive emotions, and HHS created a “Move Your Way” weekly activity planner. “Monitoring your health data and progress objectively is very helpful,” Gonzalez explains. 

Fitness wearables can also make exercise more efficient by turning it into family time through family fitness tracking. Instead of telling your teen to run around the house, strive toward your minimum goals together. “Doing so can sustain family lifestyle change,” Gonzalez says.

Backache is a condition that affects a lot of people. It tends to affect the overall quality of life of an individual. A lot of people might know how to get initial relief, however, the pain tends to come back. A recent study has found that people who have a habit of taking a walk will have their back aches much less frequently. The study also says that your walk need not be especially athletic to reduce the pain.

For the study, the scientists in Australia prescribed a walking programme for a group involving hundreds of non-athletic adults who had recovered after suffering from non-specific lower back pain. Half of them undertook the exercise wherein they were walking for at least 30 minutes, five days a week. The other half of the people did not walk. Physiotherapists helped individually tailor the walking programmes of 701 participants.

The study found that on average, those who followed the exercise programme had such severe low back pain again after 208 days that they had to restrict their regular activities. However, for those people in the control group, their back pain only returned and forced them to stop doing their usual activities after just 112 days.

This means that the people who were included in the walking programme had almost twice as long until their pain returned. They also experienced less pain overall, according to Mark Hancock, co-author of the study led by Natasha Pocovi from Macquarie University in Sydney.

The study was published in the Lancet medical journal. Hancock said, “We don’t know exactly why walking is so good for preventing back pain. But it’s probably a combination of the gentle oscillating movements, the strain and strengthening of the spinal structures and muscles, the relaxation and stress relief and the release of feel-good endorphins.”

Doctors have long been recommending that people with back pain exercise regularly and do sport. However, not everyone has the money, time or access to exercise programmes, said Pocovi. “Walking is an inexpensive, easily accessible and simple exercise.”

The researchers hope that their findings can help as many people as possible around the world, especially given that more than 600 million people worldwide suffer from lower back pain.

Ways You Can Add Walking Into Your Daily Routine

(With inputs from IANS)