Over the last decade I’ve been making at least a weekly trip to visit my Taijiquan (Tai Chi) teacher Wang Fengming. In the Chinese tradition, a few years after I met him, I became a formula lineage disciple, meaning our relationship was more family-like than a basic teacher-student. In Chinese, once one becomes a disciple, the teacher is no longer called teacher, but rather Shifu (師父). The second half of that word, “fu,” means father, attesting to the close connection that develops. I often joke that Wang Shifu is as much my Chinese language teacher as a Taijiquan teacher, as we communicate 95% of the time just in Chinese. Over the years we’ve probably spent as much time around his kitchen table talking and drinking tea as we have worked out together
As in English, in Chinese there are a lot of sayings that just about every Chinese person knows and understands. One of the first ones Wang Shifu taught me was “飯後百步走，活到九十九! (Fàn hòu bǎi bù zǒu, huó dào jiǔshíjiǔ).” It rhymes in Chinese really nicely. In English the not so lyrical translation is, “if you walk 100 steps after eating, you’ll live to 99!” This made sense to me on a few levels. In Chinese medicine, digestion is one of the most important functions in the body. If we eat too much, or if the digestive system becomes weak from say disease or aging, then it’s hard for the stomach to process that which we have eaten. Movement of the body simply helps with movement in the digestive system. For example, one of the problems of immobility in aging people is developing constipation. Move the body and the contents of the stomach and intestines will move as well. But this common understanding of the relationship between eating and moving is not unique to the Chinese. During many of my teaching trips to Europe taking a walk after eating was a common activity, especially in Germany. The common wisdom there was to also move around a bit after eating a meal.
Modern research is yet once again proving what we (in both Asia and Europe) knew traditionally through observation and experience. Over the last few years news headlines have called sitting the new smoking. This may be a bit of an exaggeration, but in truth inactivity is a problem. Over the last few years with more and more people working from home and spending too many hours on Zoom, I’ve seen this truth over and over again in the clinic – people are just not moving enough.
One recent study published in February of this year looked at some of these questions in a more scientifically rigorous way. The article, a review of several smaller studies, looked at what breaking up prolonged periods of sitting, either through just standing, or walking, would do in terms of various health markers. The authors of the study noted that, “[l]ight-intensity walking was shown to significantly reduce postprandial glucose and insulin compared to prolonged sitting and equal durations of intermittent standing.” In other words, walking after eating significantly lowered blood sugar levels, suggesting that walking can be beneficial to both treat and/or prevent diseases such as diabetes. And, the best news is that the walking doesn’t have to be particularly long, or particularly intense. So, perhaps 100 steps (not that much), can make a big difference!
Of course other types of exercise are also important and effective methods of health management. For example, some research suggests that traditional practices such as Taiji (Tai Chi) are useful in managing blood sugar levels and other markers in patients with Diabetes.
Here’s a link to a CNN article on this study, and for those who want to read the original research paper please click here. Happy walking!