Exercised: Why Something We Never Evolved to Do Is Healthy and Rewarding

by Daniel E. Lieberman

Chief among these myths is the notion that we are supposed to want to exercise. There is a class of people whom I define as “exercists” who like to brag about exercise and who repeatedly remind us that exercise is medicine, a magic pill that slows aging and delays death. You know the type. According to exercists, we were born to exercise because for millions of years our hunter-gatherer ancestors survived through walking, running, climbing, and other physical activities.

It me.

people who broke up their sitting time with frequent short breaks had up to 25 percent less inflammation than those who rarely rose from their chairs despite sitting the same number of hours.

Regardless of what factors explain this puzzling diversity, the majority of mammals sleep between eight and twelve hours a day, and most primates sleep between nine and thirteen hours.

As a form of organized, regulated play, sports were developed by each culture to teach skills useful to kill and avoid being killed as well as to teach each other to be cooperative and nonreactive.

In the eighteenth century it was fashionable to lift church bells that were silenced (made “dumb”) by having their clappers removed, hence the term “dumbbells.”