A sedentary lifestyle is basically a condition in which a person a person is having such kind of lifestyle in which there is minimum or no physical activity.
If you’re one who is having such kind of lifestyle or you know who someone who pursue the sedentary lifestyle and if you want to help them, then the first thing you should try to do is to identify the main reason behind such lazy attitude. There can be many reason behind it and it can be related to:
- Lack of knowledge
- Insufficient resources
- Injury
- Lack of interest
- Lack of time
In order to deal with a sedentary lifestyle, you have to make certain goals. You can set the goals for both short and long terms. Remember, do not even try to make goals which are unrealistic because it won’t help you out. Start with small, easy, attainable goals; like doing exercising daily for at least 10 min, if you’re able to manage this small goal then you can increase the frequency and duration of exercising. In order to set goals, you should narrow your attention on four key words, and those key words are:
- Realistic
- Understandable
- Measurable
- Behavioral
When you set any goal you have to test it with these key words and stick to it. Consistency is very much crucial.
Now in order to help that individual, you have to plan certain interventions. The following can be an intervention for the person who is having a sedentary lifestyle:
- Always begin with telling the benefits of exercising, appropriate calorie requirement.
- They should be encouraged to increase their calorie expenditure.
- You should help people with a sedentary lifestyle to identify exercise program as per their convenience, age, occupation.
- Due to a sedentary lifestyle, their body is not used of a lot of physical mobility. Therefore, they should be instructed to start at a slow pace, working for 10-15 min a day and then slowly increasing the intensity and duration of the exercise.
- Working on a new routine can be stressful for the body. Therefore, instructions should be made that exercising should be stopped if they start experiencing symptoms like dizziness, chest pain.
- If the main reason behind having a sedentary lifestyle is lack of motivation, then they should be encouraged by their significant other. Someone should enlist the cons of having a sedentary lifestyle, they should be encouraged to get along with a friend circle in which people are more health conscious
After the phase of the intervention, there should be through evaluation. Evaluation should be done so as to check whether goals are met or not. And if, not then further workup should be done.
A sedentary lifestyle can impose a serious risk to the health of an individual. It can be the causative agent in the occurrence of many deadly diseases. Therefore, those who enjoy while doing nothing at all should be warned and told the dark side of having such kind of lifestyle.
