Natural Movement: Your Daily Path to Longevity

The Next Chapter in Our Longevity Journey

In my last post, I discussed how a plant-rich diet supports digestion, immunity, metabolic health, and longevity. Embarking on a journey to live healthier for longer is not about adopting a vegan diet overnight. Instead, it's about making small, step-by-step changes that can compound over time, such as adding more fibre, antioxidants, and micronutrients to nourish your body while giving you time to adapt to new flavours. But living healthier for longer is not just about adapting our diets to eating more plants. Today, I'll dive deep into another crucial topic to enhance both longevity and wellness: Natural movement.

What is Natural Movement?

While structured exercise like endurance training, aerobic workouts, and HIIT offers known benefits for overall health, these aren't always accessible to everyone. This is where natural movement becomes essential.

Natural movement isn't about gym memberships or fitness challenges. Instead, it focuses on the movements we evolved to do: walking, squatting, reaching, carrying, crawling, climbing, rotating, and getting up off the floor. Unlike structured workouts, these movements are spontaneous, varied, and naturally integrated into daily life - think gardening, carrying groceries, playing with kids, walking barefoot on grass, or hanging from a tree branch.

Choosing to Move as Part of our Daily Routines

Movement is fundamental to living healthier for longer because our bodies are designed to be in motion. Whilst today most of us are obsessed with how many steps we get in a day, for many generations before us, that was never the case. I never heard my grandparents talk about how much exercise they got in a day. For them, movement wasn't a scheduled activity - it was simply life. They lived on a small farm, spending their days going up and down slopes, carrying buckets of fruit and vegetables, handling tools, climbing trees, harvesting potatoes and olives, making wine, storing food, and sometimes even sprinting after a runaway sheep or goat. That kind of spontaneous, full-body movement was the norm in their community, woven into daily life.

However, modern conveniences and technology have engineered natural movement out of our lives. Many of us have desk-based jobs instead of being in fields or outdoors all day. Even when that's not the case, we often travel by car or public transport instead of walking or cycling, and we use lifts and escalators instead of stairs. This shift away from natural movement patterns has significant implications for our health and longevity, making it crucial to intentionally incorporate diverse physical activity back into our daily routines to support healthy ageing.

Research shows that making natural movement part of our daily routine can significantly improve our health as we age. Even a modest goal of 6,000 to 8,000 steps a day can improve heart health, help control blood sugar, and reduce the risk of early death, especially in older adults (3, 4). We can learn from the world's Blue Zone regions, where people often live beyond 100 years. In these areas, people naturally stay active throughout their day through simple activities like walking, housework, gardening, and farming (2). And what’s even more fascinating is that, unlike what’s been thought for many years where longevity has been largely associated with genetics, this has now been proved to not be the case.  Research has found that even people with genes linked to shorter lifespans can add years to their lives by staying physically active and maintaining a healthy lifestyle. Regular, gentle movement helps people age well by reducing frailty, keeping the mind sharp, and lowering the risk of falls (5).

Why Movement Matters for Long-Term Health

Movement is one of the most powerful ways to create beneficial stress for our bodies. This process, known as hormesis, happens when small amounts of stress actually help us grow stronger rather than cause harm. When we move, the mild physical stress activates our body's repair systems, which helps boost our immunity and longevity. Specifically, exercise and eating less reduce energy levels in our cells. This triggers special proteins that promote longevity. These proteins then start a cleaning process called autophagy, where the body removes old or damaged cell parts to keep everything working better and make us more resilient (1).

These inner clean-up support defence against many of the hallmarks of ageing:

• DNA instability

• Telomere shortening

• Epigenetic changes

• Protein misfolding (linked to Alzheimer’s & Parkinson’s)

• Insulin resistance

• Inflammation

• Cellular ageing and stem cell depletion

Natural Movement Fuels Your Energy and Supports Your Immune System 

Unlike intense workouts that can sometimes leave you feeling drained, regular natural movement throughout the day gently stimulates your body’s systems, improving blood flow, oxygen delivery, and mitochondrial function. This helps you feel more energised, alert, and ready to take on daily tasks without fatigue.

Regular moderate movement enhances:

• Immune surveillance (the body’s ability to detect and respond to threats)

• Circulation of immune cells

• Anti-inflammatory signalling

• Antioxidant activity via pathways like autophagy and AMPK (1)

This makes your immune system more responsive, less reactive, and more balanced, which is crucial for protecting against infections while also reducing the risk of chronic inflammatory and autoimmune conditions.

Natural Movement Requires Good Nutrition

The synergy between movement and nutrition is fundamental for optimal health. When you fuel your body with whole, plant-based foods, you create the perfect foundation for natural movement and recovery. Here's how different nutrients support your body's movement capabilities:

• Energy & Endurance

  • Whole, unprocessed carbohydrates from fruits, root vegetables, pulses, and wholegrains provide slow-releasing glucose for sustained energy;

  • Healthy fats from avocados, nuts, seeds, and olives support endurance and provide joint lubrication;

• Recovery & Repair

  • Plant proteins from lentils, tofu, tempeh, beans, quinoa, and hemp seeds supply essential amino acids for muscle repair;

  • Vitamin C from citrus, kiwi, and peppers aids collagen synthesis and connective tissue recovery;

  • Antioxidant-rich foods like berries, turmeric, green tea, and leafy greens help neutralise oxidative stress;

• Performance Support

  • Adequate hydration with electrolytes from coconut water, leafy greens, or mineral salts helps maintain muscle efficiency;

  • Zinc, magnesium, and iron from pulses, seeds, and dark leafy greens support strength, oxygen transport, and muscle function;

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By combining these nutrient-rich foods with natural movement patterns, you create a powerful foundation for long-term health and vitality.

5 Easy Ways to Add Natural Movement to Your Day

We often think that improving our health requires intense workout sessions or expensive gym memberships. However, some of the most beneficial movement patterns can be easily integrated into our everyday lives. Here are five simple yet effective ways to incorporate more natural movement into your daily routine:

1.      Stretch and Reach Start your day with purpose by adding full-body stretches to your morning routine. Instead of reaching for a stepladder when accessing high shelves, try stretching and reaching overhead. These small movements help maintain flexibility and engage your entire body in natural ways.

2.      Floor Sitting Break away from conventional seating habits by spending some time sitting on the floor whilst reading or watching TV. This simple change engages different muscle groups and naturally improves your mobility. The act of getting up and down from the floor is an excellent functional movement that builds strength and maintains independence as we age.

3.      Balance While Brushing Turn your daily dental routine into a mini workout! Try standing on one foot whilst brushing your teeth. This simple practise improves ankle stability, engages your core, and enhances your overall balance. It's a perfect example of how everyday activities can become opportunities for movement.

4.      Take the Long Route Make movement a natural part of your journey by choosing stairs over lifts, parking further from your destination, or getting off public transport one stop early. These small decisions add up to create meaningful improvements in your daily activity levels.

5.      Walking Meetings Transform sedentary meetings into active ones by taking walking calls when possible. A 20-minute walking meeting isn't just good for your body - it can actually enhance your mental clarity and creativity compared to sitting at a screen.

Remember, the goal isn't to dramatically overhaul your routine overnight. Instead, focus on gradually incorporating these natural movements into your existing daily activities. Over time, these small changes can lead to significant improvements in your overall health and mobility.

Which of these five strategies could you start implementing today? Even choosing just one to focus on this week could be your first step towards a more naturally active lifestyle.

Movement is vital, but restoration is too. In my next blog, I’ll cover the impact that a good night of sleep has in your healthspan. Subscribe to my newsletter to conveniently receive the next blog on your email inbox.

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References

1. Bareja, A., Lee, D. E., & White, J. P. (2019). Maximizing Longevity and Healthspan: Multiple Approaches All Converging on Autophagy. Frontiers in Cell and Developmental Biology. https://doi.org/10.3389/fcell.2019.00183

2. Buettner, D., & Skemp, S. (2016). Blue Zones: Lessons From the World’s Longest Lived. American Journal of Lifestyle Medicine. https://doi.org/10.1177/1559827616637066

3. Grandes, G., et al. (2022). Any increment in physical activity reduces mortality of primary care inactive patients. BJGP. https://doi.org/10.3399/BJGP.2022.0118

4. Wen, C. P., et al. (2011). Minimum amount of physical activity for reduced mortality and extended life expectancy. The Lancet. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(11)60749-6

5. Wang, J., et al. (2023). Healthy lifestyle in late-life, longevity genes, and life expectancy among older adults. The Lancet Healthy Longevity. https://doi.org/10.1016/S2666-7568(23)00140-X