The silence is palpable on Huntington Avenue these days. During an hour that would have normally seen a frantic commute, an empty Green Line train rumbles by. In a city like Boston that is (wisely) following social distancing guidelines, people’s lifestyles have changed almost overnight — they are staying inside. The act of social distancing is necessary and should continue until the pandemic is appropriately contained. That being said, it comes at the cost of being less physically active. COVID-19 has imposed a new way of life on the country and the world, and it is a sedentary one.
Gyms and fitness centers have been closed until further notice. Team sports and workout classes have been cancelled. Even the more routine activities that people carry out in their everyday lives have changed — less commuting, fewer trips to the grocery store, skipping out on non-essential errands that would have taken them a few miles farther from home. How is this new indoor lifestyle affecting people’s health?
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention lists improved cardiovascular, metabolic, bone, muscle, endocrine, immune, and brain health among the long-term benefits of exercise.
When someone exercises regularly, their body begins to experience long-term changes. Muscle and bone mass increase, ligaments and tendons become stronger, and the size and number of mitochondria in their cells increase. The heart becomes more powerful, and lungs are able to absorb oxygen more efficiently. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention lists improved cardiovascular, metabolic, bone, muscle, endocrine, immune, and brain health among the long-term benefits of exercise.
Improvements in mental health have also been observed in correlation with regular exercise. A 2018 study in Lancet Psychiatry provided a meta-analysis of over one million American adults to explore the association between exercise and mental health burden. The paper’s findings show that individuals who regularly exercised had fewer days of poor mental health in the past month than those who had not exercised, even when corrected for other variables such as socioeconomic status. In this analysis, all types of exercise were significantly associated with lower mental health burden.
Individuals who regularly exercised had fewer days of poor mental health in the past month than those who had not exercised, even when corrected for other variables.
In fact, exercise is one of the most commonly recommended therapies for both healthy people and those with underlying disease. Some have even argued that exercise has such a prominent effect on physiological changes in the body that it should be treated as a drug, with attention paid to dosing and variation among individuals. Exercise can improve life expectancy by reducing the risk of harmful health conditions like coronary heart disease, type 2 diabetes, stroke, and breast and colon cancers.
So, what can happen when regular exercise becomes difficult to achieve? Dr. Justin Crane, professor and researcher in the Crane Lab at Northeastern, has some insight on the physiological changes that occur when regular exercise is stopped. The Crane Lab is a translational biology lab that focuses on cellular metabolism, aging, and degeneration.
“The first things to decline”, he notes, “are the fitness of the cardiovascular system and skeletal muscles, as these are very flexible metabolic systems. In circulation, your body has adapted to exercise such that you have a higher volume of blood and your heart pumps this more forcefully. Additionally, your muscles are rich in mitochondria and other metabolic enzymes and are highly vascularized.
“When you suddenly detrain your body and stop exercising, your blood volume starts to become reduced, and you start to lose the density of mitochondria in your muscles. The same issues happen on a faster timescale when astronauts go to space, or patients become bedridden. In both cases, there is a rapid increase in muscle atrophy and a drop in cardiovascular fitness.”
If you’re tired of crocheting and your sourdough didn’t come out the way you wanted, try yoga.
This sounds alarming, but it is not an inevitability. Dr. Crane defines exercise as “moderate to vigorous physical activity,” where there is at least modest sweating and heavier breathing. This is more difficult to achieve in quarantine, but it is not impossible — the human body is flexible and responds to the changes it is given. This is not to say that exercise is the cure for all physical and mental health conditions, and exercise should not be used as an excuse to avoid social distancing. If you’re tired of crocheting, though, and your sourdough didn’t come out the way you wanted, try yoga. Or pilates, Xtend Barre, or do 100 jumping jacks in your living room pretending you’re in a movie training montage. The most important thing is that you get up and be active for some part of the day. Regular exercise is one of the most important things you can do for your body, and its benefits will last well beyond the point when society’s doors can finally reopen.
Lancet Psychiatry (2018). DOI: 10.1016/s2215-0366(18)30227-x
British Journal of Pharmacology (2012). DOI: 10.1111/j.1476-5381.2012.01970.x
The Lancet (2012). DOI: 10.1016/S0140-6736(12)61031-9
Image source: Pixabay.
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