One time action: 10 minutes today, healthier for life

One of my all-time favourite books is ‘Atomic habits’ by James Clear. In this book the habit expert explains various strategies to build good habits and easily discard the bad ones. One of the strategies that I find particularly useful is to take one-time actions that have far reaching positive consequences.

Example of this could be getting vaccinated.  One shot of vaccine usually provides protection for a long time.

For today’s blog I have three very simple one-time actions picked out. They shouldn’t take more than 10 minutes and will provide you long term health benefits.

What you need to do

(many smartphone/watch users are probably already use these features)

Take out your smartphone and make the following changes:

1. Install a step counter app

2. Install an app that provides hourly beep/chime

3. In digital wellbeing section of the settings make necessary changes to turn the screen black and white half an hour before your scheduled bedtime. iPhone doesn’t provide timed grayscale yet though. You must toggle it manually every time. (Revision: A student of mine tells me that it is very much possible to have timed grayscale feature on iPhone. I stand corrected)

How will this help

All three measures are aimed to nudge you towards a healthier & more active life. Nudge is a concept developed by Richard Thaler, the Nobel Prize winner economist. Nudging is gently guiding someone towards a favourable direction. These one-time activities should nudge you to choose a healthy Lifestyle.

The step counter will tell you about your baseline physical activity level. While the recommended number is 10,000 steps per day most of us fail to reach the target on a regular basis. It is now common knowledge that people with low physical activity level are more likely to get heart diseases, diabetes mellitus and depression. Knowing your step count should motivate you to achieve better numbers. Whatever is your baseline, with a little effort you can improve it by 10% right away without much hardship.

The hourly chimes are another useful tool to prevent sedentary lifestyle.

The urban man spends most of his day in sitting which again predisposes him with all the sedentary lifestyle diseases. This gave rise to the slogan sitting is the new smoking. The hourly chimes can be used as a reminder to prevent prolonged sitting. Even 15 seconds break every hour will be useful to prevent spinal pain and stiffness. The micro breaks can also be used to perform several exercises.

I will provide further strategies related to these exercises in successive posts.

The digital wellbeing setup will create a healthy sleeping habit. Almost everyone who owns a smartphone waste valuable sleep time surfing the net on bed. Over a period of time this meddles with the sleep mechanism and affects the nervous system as a whole.

Combined, these three small changes should improve the health significantly in the long term.

Keep watching this space daily for healthier life.

About the author

Dr Subhanjan Das (PT)

BPT, MPT (MSk & Sports), CMP(NZ), Diploma in football medicine (FIFA)

Consultant Physiotherapist of Apollo & Reliva Clinic, HSR Layout, Bangalore

Contact: +91 8967549104

Dr Subhanjan Das (PT) has over 14 years of clinical and 12 years of academic experience.  A friendly professional with lots of patience and skilful hands, Dr Subhanjan has worked with thousands of his patients for instant relief of pain and rapid return to activities.  He has treated elite athletes for recovery, injury prevention and performance enhancement.

Dr Das is specialized in Orthopaedic and sports physiotherapy and has keeps himself updated with the latest advancements in the field of physiotherapy. He has undergone training on advanced orthopaedic techniques such as Dry Needling, Mulligan Concept, McKenzie method, Pilates, Cupping therapy, McConnel and kinesio  taping from the best faculties around the world.

Dr Das has taught in 5 universities across India and has trained physiotherapists in 50+ workshops within and outside India.