If you are having trouble carving out an hour or more each day for exercise, then you might want to think about shorter rounds of exercise for nurses to help you stay fit and healthy. Current U.S. guidelines recommend that we should engage in 150 minutes of physical activity per week, in exercise increments of at least 10 minutes.
To take it even further, a recent study suggested that even physical activity increments that are less than 10 minutes may be beneficial. Researchers assessed two years of data on the physical activity of 2,109 men and women enrolled in a cardiovascular risk factor study and found that 56 percent of the men and 47 percent of the women were compliant with the current 150 minutes-per-week U.S. guidelines. How about exercise routines at work for busy nurses? Yes, this can also help in maintaining you health status.
What’s interesting about the study is that regardless of the individual increment lengths of physical activity they engaged in to accumulate the 150 minutes weekly, the compliant study participants had significantly better cholesterol scores and lower triglyceride levels, as well as smaller waists and BMIs, then compared to the non-compliant group.
Of course you always want to check with your physician before starting any new exercise regimen. But for the most part, exercise benefits us all. If you have a hard time committing to long workouts, because of your busy nursing schedule, think about shorter increments, e.g., walking or jogging for 10 minutes in the morning and evening, taking a five minute break in work to do lunges, or even better yet—exercise routines portrayed on Tanya Stroh’s website can easily be split up throughout the day.
The bottom line is that doing these exercises for nurses daily will help keep you healthier and happier — take the time, no matter how long, to try to fit it in each day!