SITTING IS THE NEW SMOKING

“What you’re doing right now, this very moment, is killing you…. Sitting is so incredibly prevalent, we don’t even question it. Sitting has become the smoking of our generation.” -Nilofer Merchant, 2013

Most structural problems, such as those leading to neck, shoulder, and back pain, result from sitting for extended lengths of time. Standing up frequently and changing your position can often prevent these problems. The average American now spends more than 9 hours each day sitting in a chair or on a sofa. Sitting has now joined smoking and obesity as an important risk factor for chronic disease. Sitting will actually cut years off your life. The more you sit, the less your body wants to move. The more you sit, the less you can move!

A regular fitness routine, such as 30 minutes of physical activity most days of the week or going to the gym regularly, isn’t going to counteract hours of sitting in a chair. Going to the gym a couple of times a week, working out on a bike (sitting, again) or a treadmill (falling forward, not pushing off) or a rowing machine (sitting, again) won’t make us healthy. It will make us feel good, but not healthy. It won’t balance out the effects of a sitting lifestyle.

Your metabolism goes to pot when you sit. The body stops working, just slows down, and stagnates. Big-time sitting correlates with Type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and other chronic health issues. The more sitting time, the greater the weight gain, and your mortality rate goes way up. If the majority of your day is spent behind a desk or on the couch, you are still at risk, even if you are physically active in terms of exercise.

Okay. That’s all the bad news. Here’s the good news: you can beat this, but you have to stand up frequently and you have to move. Moving is natural; moving should be constant. Exercise is a relatively new thing, a supplement to an inactive lifestyle, just like a vitamin supplement is a substitute for poor eating habits.

In a representative study being published next month in Diabetologia of over 3600 monitored individuals, it was found that as little as 2 minutes per hour of gentle walking could lower their death rate by as much as 33 percent.

If you’re at your desk at work, take a bathroom break, whether needed or not. Stop emailing; walk down the hall to a colleague’s office and chat for 2 minutes, standing up. If you have your cell phone handy, call Mom and walk around talking for 2 minutes, or walk down or up a flight of stairs between floors. Any kind of walking, any kind of moving, will make a difference. If you’re watching TV, walk around when the commercials come on; they’re usually 2 minutes. If you’ve taped the show, let the spots run, but walk around while they are playing. Sitting is the new smoking. Don’t let it kill you.

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