Stressing over exercise could be health risk
MANy of us will have started 2018 with a panicked determination to finally sign up for a gym membership.
But too much new year guilt about your weight may be very bad for your health.
A psychologist has warned that worrying about how much exercise you are getting may lead to premature death.
Dr Robin Bailey, a behavioural psychotherapist from the University of Central Lancashire, said: ‘This is the time of year when people start to worry about having eaten too much.
‘However this stress has been linked to negative effects on health, as people who are stressed engage in unhealthy behaviours, whether that is smoking, drinking too much or failing to exercise because they are so worried about it.’
Writing on The Conversation website, he added: ‘A starting point with exercise is to give up worrying how much physical activity you are doing compared with others.’
Dr Bailey made his warning based on two US studies showing worrying too much could do more harm than good.
One by Stanford University last year, which looked at more than 60,000 people, found those who thought they were more inactive than average for their age group were 71 per cent more likely to die in the following 21 years than those who believed they were more active.
The second study, from 2007, showed hotel workers who were told they met healthy exercise guidelines through cleaning actually lost weight. Researchers from Harvard University found these workers had lower blood pressure and body fat if they believed they were active – regardless of how much activity they actually did.