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Did you know ? :going to the cinema is equivalent to doing one hour of sport!

First some figures like that out of pure kindness, know that a heart will have beaten on average 2.9 billion times in the life of a French man (whose life expectancy is 79 years) and 3.1 billion in that of a woman (85 years of life expectancy). So why such an introduction? Just to come to this study by scientists at University College London whose conclusion relieves us of guilt for preferring, on Sundays, the enveloping warmth of a cinema seat to that pair of running shoes which in the corner of the room stare at us with a baleful eye aware that we will put them on "not right now, but I'll get to it, seriously, really, I swear! .

160 beats per minute

For good reason, this study relayed by the Times and highlighted in France by the website Première demonstrates that a cinema session is like doing a short session of physical activity. So by what miracle can sitting in front of the big screen benefit our body? Because the concentration is paroxysmal and this leads to an acceleration of the heart rate.

To do this, the researchers invited about fifty people to watch the film Aladdin At the movie theater; at the same time, other people were reading and all were equipped with sensors to record live the evolution of their body temperature, their heart rate and skin reactions. Results? the heart rate of those who were at the movies accelerated, reaching between 95 and 160 beats per minute, the equivalent of an hour of brisk walking.

184 calories burned watching The Shining movie

But we see you coming, no that is not viable at home, lying on your bed and facing your screen. No, these scientists insisted on the need to move in a movie theater to enjoy the physical benefits, the involvement of the viewer being total for a long time.

A study that echoes a previous one that praised watching horror movies as a way to lose weight. The reason for the stress they give us; thus would we eliminate 184 calories in front of the movie Shining , or as much as a 40-minute walk. For a sporty Sunday, we recommend more than ever a stroll to the market then a villainous siesta, a good movie and finishing it off with another part of the leg in the air; without forgetting to put away those damn running shoes to stop feeling guilty.