Physical activity is activity at any intensity where your body moves and burn calories.

Our ancestors were hunters/gatherers who moved naturally most of the day. With technological advancement, humans are spending increasingly more time sitting; hence physical activity needs to be explicitly incorporated.

 

Exercise Moderate to vigorous aerobic activity (which can be conducted for at least 10 minutes at a time to meet the 150 minutes per week recommendations) is only one part of physical activity. Most who meet the aerobic exercise recommendations, only exercise for a fraction of their waking time.

 

Yoga Asanas Yoga is an integration of many components. The physical activity aspect is known as 'Asanas', which include static and dynamic stretching, balancing/ neuromuscular coordination as well as resistance/strength training using your body as weight. Holding the postures while breathing normally increases both strength and endurance, and also helps increase focus and calms the mind. 

 

Other physical activity (lower intensity and/or duration than exercise) is important to include throughout the waking time independently of exercise. For some people who do manual work or are otherwise very active, this occurs naturally. Others need to explicitly incorporate activity frequently to interrupt their sedentary time as per the recommendations.