Sitting for long periods of time is slowly killing you.
Don’t take my word for it, let’s look at the facts.
Researchers analysed 13 studies of sitting time and activity levels.
They found that those who sat for more than eight hours a day with no physical activity had a risk of dying similar to that posed by obesity and smoking.
Turns out that sitting for long periods of time changes the expression of a multitude of genes which in turn leads to:
- Rising inflammation,
- Poor cardiovascular health
- Poor posture
- Obesity & weight gain
- Neck, shoulder & low back pain
- Increased risk for depression + anxiety
and a whole host of other effects, none of which are good.
The bad news…
All it takes is around 2 hours of sitting and these effects start to manifest themselves.
Most of us will sit for much longer than this on a daily basis.
Since 1960 the number of sedentary jobs has increased by a massive 83%.
When you factor in the increasing comfort of our lifestyles, coupled with technology which makes our lives easier at every turn. The result, for most of us, are lives where we are sedentary the majority of the time.
“No worries,” I hear you cry, “I work out.”
Here’s the real kicker…
Short bursts of exercise don’t help.
Instead it seems the negative health effects caused by sitting are best counter-acted by low levels of physical activity over the entire day.
So a sudden burst of exercise wont fix it.
This is further compounded by something called the “compensatory effect”.
That is, when we’ve done a decent amount of exercise we think we deserve a rest. So we tend to take it easier for the rest of the day.
You can’t do cross fit in the morning and then hit the sofa for the rest of the day.
- You need to be constantly micro moving.
- You need to maintain a constant low level of physical activity.
This is the best way to keep those pro inflammatory genes switched off.
Now For The Good News (especially for those of you who hate formal exercise)
The solution is relatively simple:
Move for 5 – 10 mins every hour.
Get up and go for a toilet break, do some press ups, get a standing desk or even better a walking desk, go for a walk on your lunch break.
Hell, you really don’t need me to tell you how to do this, just try to build things that get you moving into your day.
Sam.
