In honour of February being heart health month and today being Valentine’s day, it was evident that it’s time to talk about the life-giving source in all of us. Our heart.  How do you possibly measure a life?

You were born with this fantastic pump called a heart

That heart alone does its job no matter what day/month/year/age you are.

I looked up some interesting facts about just how much your heart beats in your lifetime.  Did you know that on average, your heart beats 80 times per minute (this varies depending on how strong or weak your heart is), which equals 4,800 times per hour,  115,200 times a day, or an amazing 42,048,000 times a year?

Your heart pumps enough energy to make a truck go 20 miles a day!

Wow!  In your lifetime, you could go to the moon and back – so when you say “I love you to the moon and back” to someone, it has multiple meanings!

If you live to be 80 years old, your heart would have beaten approximately 3,363,840,000 times!

Of course, there are no guarantees, but what if I told you that there is one way to help keep your heart healthy and functioning well through your lifetime?  How?

PLAY

With all of those facts and numbers about your heart, there is a minimum play investment you might want to consider for a healthier future. When I coach my clients about what lifestyle habits to consider to keep them healthy, it helps to break things down into do-able tasks.

It’s only 2% of your day

What if you looked at your daily play (heart pumping) requirements as they are…only 2% of your day?

Let’s do some math (this is good for me as I’m not a math girl, but I can use a calculator):

• 24 hours in a day (everyone gets these!)
• You sleep 8 hours (hopefully) a day.
• You are awake for 16 hours.
• That gives you 960 (16 x 60) minutes a day.

The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends the minimum amount of physical activity a week of 150 minutes, so:

150 divided by 7 (7 days in a week) = 21.42 minutes a day (let’s round that up to 22 minutes).

Can you find 22 minutes (or 2% of your day) in the 960 minutes you get in 24 hours?

Still too much?

Well, you know, you don’t have to do those 22 minutes all at once.

The effect continues as we leapfrog through to the target 22 minutes a day:

• 5 minutes of movement 4.4 times
• 8 minutes of movement 2.75 times
• 11 minutes of movement 2 times
• 15 minutes of movement 1.46 times
• 20 minutes of movement 1.1 times
• 22 minutes of movement 1 time

Wouldn’t you take a pill that could do all of this?

I do. It’s called Play!

Play (exercise) not only makes your heart durable, but it also sharpens the brain, helps control weight, increases self-esteem, improves academic performance, builds healthy muscles, improves concentration & attention, improves endurance, reduces stress and anxiety, makes healthy bones, can improve blood pressure & cholesterol levels; it’s the closest thing we have to a miracle drug. It’s FREE…AND IT FEELS GOOD:)

So get out there and please take care of yourself.

Keep well and play on!