One Must Leave Death Cheerfully, Quickly And Sleep Well - Research, Quality Of Life

We are too concerned about our weight, considering it a marker of health and striving for the ideal in terms of body mass index. This index, calculated by dividing weight in kilograms by height in meters squared, has always been an imperfect measure of health. He did not take into account the size of the waist, the volume of the muscles and other parameters, and now, when we learn more about the work of our body, it does not satisfy us at all. This is natural, because the index was invented back in 1869

Meanwhile, new metrics are emerging that can both assess health status and provide direction for improving it.

1. Push-ups from the floor

An international team of scientists (Yang et al., 2019) has shown that push-ups can be an accurate predictor of health. Those of the more than 1,100 men in the study who could do less than 10 push-ups had a significantly greater risk of heart attack than those who did more push-ups. The best indicator, judging by the results, was the ability to push up 40 times.

This is an optimistic indicator that you are doing well. The number of push-ups turns out to be a better test than some cardio tests offered by doctors

2. Walking speed

Today, with trackers or smartphone apps, it is not difficult to calculate the number of steps.

An international team of scientists (Studenski et al., 2011) analyzed walking speed data for nearly 35,000 people aged 73.5 years (on average). The researchers followed the participants in the experiment from six years to 21 years. During such a long observation, about half of the people who began to participate in the experiment were gone.

Is there a relationship between walking speed and mortality? The conclusions reached by the authors of the study are as follows:

• A speed lower than 0.6 meters per second (2.16 kilometers per hour) is a threshold speed - this indicates poor health and a high probability of death.
• The researchers found that for every 0.1 meter per second increase in speed, the chance of death was reduced by about 12%.
• Scientists believe that speeds above 1 meter per second (3.6 kilometers per hour) in old age will lead to an excess of the average life expectancy, and speeds above 1.2 meters per second (4.3 kilometers per hour) will lead to the greatest life expectancy. …

Research continues, but one thing is clear - it is better to get away from death quickly. Now, when I am walking, I remember this and accelerate my pace. Death will overtake me, of course, sooner or later, but she will have to sweat

3. Compression force

A group of scientists from the University of Glasgow (Celis-Morales et al., 2018) analyzed data from more than 500,000 people aged 40 to 69, who were followed for seven years. Researchers measured the strength of the hand grip and found amazing data. It turned out that mortality from cardiovascular disease, all types of lung diseases and many types of cancer is associated with the strength of the muscles of the hand. Less than 26 kilograms for men and less than 15 kilograms for women indicate muscle weakness and a high likelihood of illness.

A similar study by Norwegian scientists (Strand et al., 2016) with almost 7000 people between 50 and 80 years old showed even more interesting results.

First, a weak grip added stroke and accidents to the list of probable causes of death.

Secondly, it showed that if a person has enough strength at 80 years old, then there is a high probability that he will live to be 100 years old.

A Swedish study (Ortega et al., 2012) captured even more people - over a million teenagers aged 16-19 who were followed for 24 years. The stronger the teenager turned out to be, the less likely he was to die from the diseases mentioned above. But both the risk of suicide and the risk of psychiatric illness have decreased. It is amazing how indicative and predictive the grip strength of the expander is.

Therefore, no matter how old you are (as well as your children and other loved ones), it is never too late to get stronger and test the strength of your hand. Then, when death grabs you by the shoulder, you will have the strength to tear off her bony hand and quickly leave

4. Sleep

Scientists have long noticed that personality types can predict lifespan, but why was unclear. And then a "mediator" was found - a dream. It turns out that our sleep depends on how much neuroticism, extraversion, openness, friendliness and conscientiousness are mixed in us. American researchers (Spears et al., 2019) analyzed data from nearly 4,000 people collected over 20 years.

Scientists have found that too long, more than eight hours, and too short, less than six hours, sleep predicts mortality. The study used seven hours of sleep as a baseline, plus or minus 65 minutes. Anything longer or shorter than this indicator led to a 10% increase in the risk of mortality over 20 years.

Sleep quality is also predictive. It can be determined today by both trackers and general well-being. Listen to yourself: do you feel sleepy and tired during the day? Sleep quality is just as important as sleep duration.

There is nothing wonderful about these tests and metrics. If we get enough sleep and feel refreshed without simulators, we can briskly push up off the floor several dozen times, squeeze out a hand expander and walk quickly, this means that, most likely, we have normal blood pressure, blood sugar, we do not smoke or abuse alcohol

What does this have to do with psychology?

If you get angry that you could only do eight push-ups and squeeze only 19 kilograms on a hand expander, decide that this is no good and need to fix the situation, you will be motivated to change your lifestyle and start improving your health.

Michael Joyner, a physiologist at the Mayo Clinic (USA), who is called an expert on the limits of human ability, believes (Hamblin, 2019) that such behavior change itself can predict health.

By remembering the exploration and speeding up the pace, we consciously build a connection between how we live today and are going to live tomorrow. Reminding ourselves of this over and over again, we will inevitably change our behavior, begin to actively engage in physical activity and be careful about sleep. And when death comes, we will be able to tell her: “You see, I'm kind of busy here, I'm doing push-ups. Come back in a couple of years. "

More about this:

• Celis-Morales CA, Welsh P., Lyall DM, Steell L., Petermann F., Anderson J., Gray SR Associations of grip strength with cardiovascular, respiratory, and cancer outcomes and all cause mortality: prospective cohort study of half a million UK Biobank participants // The BMJ. 2018.361, k1651.
• Hamblin J. The power of one push-up // The Atlantic. June 27, 2019. URL: theatlantic.com/health/archive/2019/06/push-ups-body-weight-bmi/592834/
• Ortega FB, Silventoinen K., Tynelius P., Rasmussen F. Muscular strength in male adolescents and premature death: cohort study of one million participants // BMJ. 2012.345, e7279. doi: 10.1136 / bmj.e7279
• Spears SK, Montgomery-Downs HE, Steinman SA, Duggan KA, Turiano NA (2019). Sleep: A pathway linking personality to mortality risk // Journal of Research in Personality. 81.11–24.
• Strand BH, Cooper R., Bergland A., Jorgensen L., Schirmer H., Skirbekk V., Emaus N. The association of grip strength from midlife onwards with all-cause and cause-specific mortality over 17 years of follow-up in the Tromso Study // Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health. 2016.70 (12). 1214-1221.
• Studenski S., Perera S., Patel K., Rosano C., Faulkner K., Inzitari M., Guralnik J. Gait speed and survival in older adults // JAMA. 2011.305 (1). 50-58.
• Yang J., Christophi CA, Farioli A., Baur DM, Moffatt S., Zollinger TW, Kales SN Association between push-up exercise capacity and future cardiovascular events among active adult men // JAMA Network Open. 2019.2 (2), e188341-e188341.