Telling people their ordinary physical activities constitute exercise can decrease weight, blood pressure, and waist line.  That’s the finding of a group of Harvard researchers who told hotel cleaners their daily job fulfilled the Surgeon General’s requirements for daily fitness.

         Prior to the study, one third of the women hotel workers thought they never exercised.  Two thirds thought they did hardly any.

        Then the cleaners were separated into two groups.  One was told their work was physical exercise, and how many calories it took to vacuum a floor or fix a bed. The other group was told they would be studied.

         At the end of four weeks, the “informed” group lost weight; lowered blood pressure ten percent; decreased their percentage of body fat; their waist line; and their BMI.   The “uninformed” group showed no change.

         Did the newly informed “exercisers” change their diet and physical activities?  The researchers say no.  The metrics they used showed no difference between the two groups in how they moved and what they ate.  They felt the result the lowered weight, waist line, and blood pressure of the informed group came from the placebo effect.

         Maybe not.  Telling people how many calories they use from vacuuming a floor or cleaning a bathroom can change how people engage those activities.  They may appear to be doing “the same thing,” but actually perform it differently.

         What is true that when people know why they do something it effects the outcome.

         Ideas matter.  If you tell friends enjoying a stay at a rural farmhouse not to be surprised by nighttime popping noises,  that the sounds come from local animals, they may sleep well. Telling your friends that several neighbors were recently murdered, that the popping sounds may be gunshots, will change the quality of their vacation experience.

         Too many Americans think exercise is something you do in a gym. It’s qualitatively different from ordinary life.  You’re only “exercising” when you’re performing separate, clear cut athletic activity.

         The truth is different.

         Standing takes 25% more calories than sitting.  Walking to the restaurant for lunch is exercise.  Cleaning the bathroom is exercise.  Weeding crabgrass is exercise.

         Many, many ordinary activities constitute exercise.  Probably the simplest, easiest, and most common example is walking.  The human body is a walking machine.  Any little bit of walking you do counts.

         The data from the longest-lived populations in the world surprises many.   Despite an average lifespan less than Cuba’s, the United States has the longest lived populations in the world.  They are Asian American women in Suffolk County.  A relatively small group, they average 95.6 years of expected lifespan.  A much larger group of Asian American women in Bergen County New Jersey average 91.1 years.

         Do these women move?  Yes.  They walk to  stores and to visit friends.  They get over to the markets and grocery stores.  They often walk up and down stairs.

         They also come from cultures where high degrees of physical labor is traditionally related to lower social status.

         Are their high survival rates the result of having been born in Asian cultures?  The daughters of the women in Bergen County live five years longer than their foreign born mothers. New Jersey is a national “cancer hot spot,” and Bergen County is part of Metro New York City.   Life is far removed from that of Okinawan women, the previously long life record holders, who live in a “sub-tropical paradise.”

         Bergen County is no subtropical paradise.

         The take home lessons from these studies are two:  all exercise counts for health and survival.  Ordinary activities prolong lifespan. The Asian American women of Suffolk County are living ten years longer than what not long ago was considered humanity’s maximum lifespan, 85 years.

         The second lesson is that ideas matter.  People want to do something for a reason.  If they know why and how, it changes the results.

         Think what might happen if people realized their body was a system, and that Food, Activity, and Rest, were a deeply connected part of that system.  If many  recognized eating, moving, and resting sequentially through the day were part of what the body is designed to do, just imagine what changes in blood pressure, weight, diabetes, heart disease, and stroke might occur.  Then Americans could recognize that preserving their lives and strengthening social connections might help clean the environment, sustaining our families and the world.

         With so many living so much longer, we might really bankrupt Social Security.

Dr. Matthew Edlund, M.D., M.O.H., director of The Center for Circadian Medicine, is an expert on applied public health, sleep medicine and psychiatry. A former professor at Brown and University of Texas medical schools, he can be reached via email to DocME@DoctorEdlund.com. And CLICK HERE to subscribe to our new Fitcast, via the iTunes Store.