Breaking Down Reality: Physical Activity Time vs Phone Use

"I have no time" is one of the primary reasons for not being active and moving our bodies. As with anything in our health, the answer is not straight forward - it's complex. There are many factors at play here. But let's focus on the numbers in regards to one key area, which is our time spent using our smartphones.

No it's not just kids! Adults are EQUALLY as addicted to their devices today; age is not a boundary here. Have no fear! I'm not here to debate why or tell you to "put the phone down!", I'm here to point out the lie we often tell ourselves which is that "if I had more time, I could be more active". Time has nothing to do with it.

Crunching Numbers

CSEP (Canadian Society of Exercise Physiology) recommends...

🚶150min (MINIMUM) of moderate to vigorous aerobic physicaly activity per week for positive general health benefits.

🏋 Muscle strengthening activities using major muscle groups (at least) twice per week

🪴 Several hours of light physical activities, including standing (eg: housework, gardening, yard work etc, painting etc)

*These guidelines also include 7-9 hrs of sleep AND no more than 3hrs of recreational screen time (doom-scrolling, binge watching TV etc)

150min of physical activity per week = 2.5hours out of the 168hrs in a week for the minimum recommended amount for health benefits.

That's 1.4% of your week. 😳

That's also equivalent to 30min/day, 5-days per week. BUT remember - that can be 30min ACCUMULATIVE. It does NOT have to be all at once! (... this deal keeps getting better eh?)

Let's say you're ambitious and decide you're going to do 7-days per week with 30min of physical activity each day. That equals 210-minutes of physical activity, which is 3.5hrs out of your 168hrs in the week. (... this is STILL a good deal!)

Now that we have those numbers in our heads, what is the average time spent on a smartphone in 2024?? 4.5hrs per day!!! (I've experienced this with adult clients who have tracked their usage as well - it's very true!)

That means an average of 31.5hrs per week staring at our phones... 😳

Are you seeing what I'm seeing???

If we compare our smartphone average daily use, to the physical activity guidelines for Canadians, we use our phones 10-times MORE than doing 7-days of physical activity for 30min (accumulative) per day!

But... We have no time???

😳🤔

What this shows is that we have much less need to concern ourselves with WHAT we specifically do for physical activity. It's no the WHAT, it's our daily habits. It's our mindset. It's our priorities. If we spend more energy and focus on our HABITS, how we spend our time and creating change in that regard (in small doses), that's where we'll see the biggest impact of positive change.

You CAN Actually Have Both!

We can have both our health and time on our devices, IF...

...We learn to move away from the "All or Nothing" mindset and way of living

...We practice using our devices INTENTIONALLY rather than COMPULSIVELY

...We put our energy into HABITS instead of diving into specifics that most of us don't need

Simply put, life is always about tradeoffs. Currently, MOST people are trading their health in favour of their smartphones and then believing the lie they are telling themselves each and every day; "I don't have time".

I challenge you to self-experiment with this. If you think you're not in the average person regarding your phone use, all modern phones have time trackers that break down how many times you looked at your phone, time spent on your phone in total, time spent on specific apps... It's very handy information, that MANY people are SCARED to experiment with for fear of the results. If you think you're fine and "that can't be it", all good - but then don't complain about your lack of time. If you're so certain your phone is NOT taking away time from moving your body each day... Prove it to yourself.