Health hacks: Why a healthier lifestyle doesn't take much time at all

Guides for a healthier life fill entire bookshop shelves. And most of the tips in them are certainly not wrong. However, implementing many good intentions often requires major lifestyle changes - and that too overnight. Not easy for humans, who are creatures of habit. Even taking the first step is usually difficult. Because how do you start living a healthier life? The answer of the inner bastard is often: not at all!

Little(er) is a lot

With these scientifically backed tricks, you may be able to outsmart your inner bastard more easily. After all, these little health hacks can be implemented quickly in everyday life, at little cost and with minimal stress, and have a huge impact on your well-being.

Don't really believe in one-minute miracles? Then here's an example: you have almost certainly (hopefully) successfully integrated it into your life during the coronavirus pandemic without making any major sacrifices (in terms of time): regular, thorough hand washing. This has been proven to interrupt the transmission routes of many germs, as emphasised not only by the German Bundeszentrale für gesundheitliche Aufklärung (BZgA).

Health Hack 1: It's better to exercise intensively than for a long time

A new study shows that sprint interval training (SIT), which takes no longer than 30 minutes in total per week including warm-up and cool-down, is just as beneficial to health as medium-intensity continuous training (MICT) three times a week for 50 minutes each time (i.e. 2.5 hours in total).

The researchers had nine previously inactive young men complete a total of one minute of high-intensity cycling on an indoor bike three times a week for 12 weeks. The minute was divided into three 20-second bursts of maximum effort, with two-minute recovery phases of moderate intensity in between.

The reward: "We were able to demonstrate that SIT is a time-efficient training strategy to improve insulin sensitivity, endurance, cardiorespiratory fitness (ed.: the ability of the respiratory and circulatory systems to supply the body with oxygen), skeletal muscle mitochondrial content and other indices of cardiometabolic health to the same extent as traditional MICT," says study leader Martin J. Gibala, Professor of Kinesiology at McMaster University in Ontario. In addition, the study showed that the intensive training sessions also led to a similar, moderate weight loss as MICT and were associated with an increase in calorie burning. "10 minutes per training session, 60 seconds of which are strenuous - it would be difficult to develop an effective training programme that is even faster."

The recovery, warm-up and cool-down phases are needed so that the body is able to push itself to its limits for 60 seconds at a time and because it is important to prepare the body for the strain in order to prevent injuries, according to the expert.

However, there is a catch: you shouldn't start with high-intensity training, such as SIT, without sound training experience or professional advice and instruction from a fitness trainer.

After all, a study published in December in "Nature Medicine" Studie hat bereits gezeigt: Even short, intensive activities in the daily routine - such as climbing stairs, power walking, thorough house cleaning or playing with children or pets - significantly reduces the risk of dying from cancer or heart disease.

Health Hack 2: Plan more instead of eating more

For many people, one of the hardest things to do when it comes to health is to discipline themselves when it comes to eating - be it in terms of quantity, calories or choosing healthy foods. However, a balanced and moderate diet is essential. "It protects against many chronic diseases such as heart disease, diabetes and cancer," writes the World Health Organisation.

However, there are a few tricks that can help you to eat better.

Step 1: Give your impulse control a boost. Writing a shopping list is one of them, says Cornell professor Manoj Thomas. You should also never go shopping hungry. And: always pay cash in the supermarket. According to a study by the Journal of Consumer Research, this leads to more conscious shopping. This is not only easy on your wallet, but also improves your health. In the study, more healthy and low-calorie foods ended up in the shopping basket when the test subjects paid with notes or coins. The reason: "The pain of paying in cash can dampen the impulsive urge to buy unhealthy food products. Credit card payments, on the other hand, weaken impulse control," explains study author Thomas.

Step 2: Set the table more consciously. A study shows that you can get a grip on your portion sizes by eating from smaller plates or shallower bowls that hold less food. "It seems that we use our eyes to count calories and not our stomachs. An empty plate signals: I'm full," says study leader and nutritional psychologist Brian Wansink.

Bonus hack: Whether it's crisps or chocolate - if you have a craving for something that doesn't deserve to be called "healthy", wait a minute before tearing open the packet. "In 80 per cent of cases, pausing leads to healthier choices being made afterwards because the craving disappears," says expert Wansink.

Health Hack 3: Better to sleep better than longer

"Sleep is one of the most important factors when it comes to our health. Our sleep behaviour affects everything from our daily functioning, weight and risk of heart attack to our long-term mental wellbeing," says Professor Russell Foster, Director of the Sleep and Circadian Neuroscience Institute at the University of Oxford.

Studies have shown: The most crucial aspect of sleep is the quality of the night's rest. Of course, a sufficiently long sleep of ideally seven to nine hours is also very important, as is a natural sleep rhythm that does not create a discrepancy between the internal clock and lifestyle, emphasises study leader Michaela Kudrnáčová from Charles University in Prague. "Of all three aspects, however, the quality of sleep had the greatest impact on the quality of life parameters analysed."

Before you go to the expense of buying a bed, mattress, duvet or sleep guide in a multipack, you should try the following hack: Take a warm shower or bath at a water temperature of 40 to 42.8 °C one to two hours before going to bed. A study has shown that this can lower your heart rate, deepen and slow down your breathing and slow down your digestion, which will help you sleep better. You also lower your core body temperature: this signals to your body that it's time to sleep and improves blood flow to the palms of your hands and soles of your feet, which also contributes to sleep quality.

The most important facts in brief

As you can see, you don't have to invest every second of your life in your health. You can achieve a lot in just a few minutes and with just a few tricks. Thanks to the health hacks, you also experience self-efficacy. You realise that you can actively do something that is good for you. And that can give you the kick to tackle even bigger changes.

*You're not motivated enough yet? Then you'll find even more health hacks in the second part of this series of articles. *