Does your apartment need to be thoroughly cleaned and dusted, but you can’t motivate yourself to do it at all? Perhaps the results of a new study will help you see annoying household chores in a more positive light.
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Cleaning: According to a study, housework is healthy
In a recently published study , researchers from Singapore examined almost 500 participants to see whether there was a connection between the duration of the weekly housework and health factors such as physical fitness and cognitive abilities. To find out, the scientists carried out standardized tests that recorded, among other things, the subjects’ memory performance, attention span and walking speed. Questionnaires were used to determine the weekly time that the participants spent on light housework – washing dishes, dusting, doing laundry, tidying up – and heavy housework – cleaning windows, vacuuming, mopping the floor, changing bed linen.
The results were astounding: Among the over-65s, those who did a lot of household chores performed significantly better in most tests than those who hardly ever did housework. In particular, memory performance and attention span as well as the ability to quickly get up from a chair were significantly better in the active group. It hardly mattered whether the subjects did light or heavy housework. In order to actually be able to prove a causal relationship, however, further studies are necessary in the future. However, the current results should make the boring housework a little easier to do in the future.
Lose weight: how many calories you burn doing housework
In addition to improving cognitive and motor skills, strenuous housework in particular can also help to lose weight. This should provide additional motivation for cleaning and dusting in the future. For example, you can burn about 100 calories with 30 minutes of vacuuming, cleaning windows, changing bed linen or mopping floors. However, gardening has the biggest impact – you can burn a total of 360 calories per hour weeding or repotting plants.
Motivating: Lose weight by cleaning – you burn so many calories with housework >>
