Just One Thing - Stand On One Leg Facts By Dr Michael Mosley

nearly went we'd all like some quick and simple ways to improve our health but we're bombarded with often conflicting advice so if you were going to do just one thing to improve your mental and physical well-being what should it be maybe a few squats to enhance your brain or more bacteria to improve your mood or even a cold show to boost your immune system I'm Dr Michael Mosley and this is just one thing where each episode we'll explore one thing you can start doing tomorrow to improve your health or life in ways you might not [Music] expect so I'm about to do something I find surprisingly hard but I know it can reduce my risk of injury improve my posture and could even predict how long I'll live I do it every morning while I'm brushing my teeth I set a timer and then I stand on one leg practicing standing on one leg and then switching to the other after 30 seconds or so is a simple way to improve your balance better balance means better posture o nearly went then and fewer injuries from falling which according to the World Health Organization is the second commonest cause of accidental death worldwide so how easy is it to improve your sense of balance nearly went let's find out hi my name's Annette I've just turned 50 years young the task allocated um to me is one to improve balance and work on my core strength by focusing on standing on one leg for one minute I have to say my bounce wouldn't be very good um have tried yoga and least to say I was a very wobbly tree and my body tended to join the direction of my hands so hopefully this will help with that we're going to be asking Annette to stand on one leg every day firstly with her eyes open then if she finds that easy enough with her eyes closed and should be timing herself every day balance is something most of us take for granted but like our muscle strength if we don't use it we lose it being able to walk upright let alar do something more complex like running or jumping involves your brain performing a remarkable feat of coordination between your muscles your inner ear and your eyes balance is what enables you to move confidently and powerfully through the world it affects your whole life the bad news is that along with your muscular strength your sense of balance starts to deteriorate as you enter your 40s and 50s and this will make you less physically confident one reason why my kids are so much more Fearless when it comes to things like skiing is because they have much better control of their balance like so many things in life we don't think about working on our balance until something goes wrong like a fo and by then it is much harder to correct improving your balance really can have a life-changing impact it improves core strength posture and coordination do that and you are more likely to walk upright rather than hunched which will make you look younger and might also improve your mood there's even research showing that balance is a great predictor of healthy life expectancy one big study found a clear relationship between how long people in their 50s could stand on one leg with their eyes closed and whether they would be alive 13 years later I'll be finding out more about why these might be connected shortly first what is balance well to keep upright our brain uses messages from the balance organs in our inner ear along with messages from our eyes muscles and our joints together they tell your brain where your body is in space this also allows you to do different things without thinking such as running while dribbling a basketball as we get older and less active our muscles tend to get weaker and our brains aren't as good as they used to be at integrating sensory inputs and then effortlessly making those small adjustments that make balance possible the good news is it is never too late to change you can improve your balance really quite quickly and how can you do that well you need to challenge it you need to do things like practice standing on one leg or use a wobble board or do taiichi anything which taxes your whole balance system what you will find particularly if you're over 40 is that while standing on one leg can be challenging standing on one leg with your eyes closed is even harder if you can do over 10 seconds you are doing well let's check back in with a net and see how she's getting on with standing on one leg has she closed her eyes yet I was tasked with a standing on one leg for one minute firstly my left leg with my eyes open working towards eyes closed then with my right which would be my better leg with eyes open then closed I can definitely see and feel how this works my core and try and stabilize myself so we've now asked Anette to close her eyes while she's standing on one leg this will really push those balanced skills and we're also asking her to try and do it for longer each day to see how quickly she can improve Professor daor Skelton is an exercise physiologist at glasgo Caledonian University hi d uh can you tell me about balance and what happens um as you age unfortunately we all start losing our ability to stay upright from about the age of 3540 um and in fact some sometimes earlier than that because it's such an integration of all the body systems to keep us upright it's not a simple thing so um it starts quite young uh and it it deteriorates the older we guess I'm afraid and is there any evidence that um we're getting getting worse at it yes there is um with each uh generation we're a bit less active um now I know that sounds a bit weird because we've got all these physical activity guidelines but actually balance requires you just being on your feet and interacting with your environment regularly um and of course we spend a lot more time on our screens at all ages uh and there is now starting to see some evidence that balance is getting a little bit worse with each generation and uh what are the serious downsides with losing your sense of balance well the worst is falling of course um and when we're young we fall we look a bit embarrassed we get up again and we get on with things but as we're older we might not be able to get up from that fall it might start making us fearful of movement so we stop moving other times and that makes us socially isolated living a home not going out much which isn't good for mental health right and in terms of um balance and the study um can you tell me about a study which looked at balance as a predictor of life expectancy yes uh and this is an interesting one because to have good balance our brain has to be able to integrate lots of information from across the body from the eyes from all the sensors in your joints and from your inner ear balance systems um and so balance will show up as bad if there's any problems with any of those things uh so we know if people have poorer balance they don't live as long now that could be because they're falling and they're fracturing and therefore dying earlier but actually it's probably more to do with the brain um and the Brain being able to integrate all that information and make sure it's doing the right thing as a result of that um and of course if it's not doing that well for balance it's not doing it well for your hormones and your other systems your cardiovascular system so it's a it's a marker of decline of other things so if it's a marker of decline is there any evidence that if you improve your balance uh that that could have an impact on um your health generally we certainly know if you can improve your balance uh such that you stop falling as much um that can make a big difference in terms of hip fractures and the poor outcomes that occur as a result of that we also know that lots of activities that improve balance involve what they called dual tasking so they make the brain work a bit harder so there is some suggestion that actually it helps cognition and potentially prevents or slows the chance of getting dementias as well now we know that sitting being sedentary is bad to you it's bad um for things like your risk of type 2 diabetes is there any evidence that um practicing balancing exercises is better than just sort of Simply standing up and walking around yes there is um and we know that for example if someone has poor balance they need to really train their balance rather than just move about more um so being on our feet is is good for health we we want to avoid prolonged sitting anyway but we know that people that practice balance um so they could stand up once an hour break up that long period of sitting and perhaps do a 30 second stand on one leg or 30 second standing in a tandem stand and those sorts of things mean you're breaking up your sedentary Behavior you're in standing but you're also practicing your balance what's the tandem stand it's when you put one tip of your heel against the toe of the other so like you walking along a tight rope yeah okay um and that that's really challenging your balance because it's reducing your base of support um walking backwards is also a really good balanced challenge so do be careful because you don't know what's behind you um and obviously if you keep turning your head you could actually end up getting dizzy because your vestibular systems being worked overworked but essentially thing you want to try and integrate it into your daily life so while you're waiting for the kettle to boil stand on one leg close your eyes that'll make it much harder you'll almost certainly have to put your foot down but eventually you'll get better at doing that your brain will integrate that information better I guess you also have to be a little bit careful because certainly I find When I close my eyes and try I start to really get shaky you don't want to be fall you over and bash your head you need to be near a fixed support definitely so not a a kitchen um chair that could fall over if you lean on it um ideally a good solid sink a good solid kitchen surface um those sorts of things aren't going to move so if you're in your 60s like I am is it too late to begin it's never too late Michael you'll be pleased to know um I have worked with 95 year olds that couldn't get the toe off the floor at all to do a one leg stand um and you know three or four months later so they can stand on one leg quite happily for up to 60 seconds it's regular practice now the only time that won't work is if you have a progressive neurological condition um such as Progressive Parkinson's or or or dementia which is progressing fast but on the whole at any age any age you can improve your balance it just requires you to practice regularly what about things like Tai Chi taii is one of the best activities to improve your balance um it's slow and controlled it's threedimensional so your head moves at different times the rest of your body you get all that feedback from the joints because it's slow and controlled it's one of the best things to help prevent your first fall um it it's really is a lot of evidence for that if you're very frail taiichi Isn't So achievable um and people tend to end up doing it seated which means it doesn't actually have a Balan challenge um so the frailer you are it's just being in standing and trying to reduce your Bas of support with something close by to to hand but taichi if you've got the ability to be on your feet happily for for half an hour to to an hour taichi is one of the best ways to improve balance most definitely thank you very much thanks Michael so we can improve our balance at any age and with that will come a number of benefits if you're doing it right let's check in with Annette and see how she's got on I have tried with eyes open and eyes closed I feel it's better to have the eyes open open and focus on a point as this helped with concentration and kep me more static I'll hopefully continue with my attempts at this and um I'll maybe be a Yoga Tree professional in no [Music] time well that another 2 minutes of standing on one leg while brushing my teeth done today I try to do this every day you can do it while brushing your teeth or doing the washing up whenever you feel like it I do feel the benefits of this one are really impressive for such a small amount of time and effort by standing on one leg you can improve your core strength your posture your mood and you can even perhaps improve your lifespan not [Music] bad so that's it just one thing you can incorporate into your daily routine which really could benefit your body and life if you want to hear more of the series then why not sub subscribe