Written for Heart1 by Michelle Alford
Modern adults live a sedentary lifestyle. We sit while traveling, working, watching TV, and playing games. Even talking to friends, shopping, and paying bills can all be done without leaving the computer. According to a poll of almost 6,300 people done by the Institute for Medicine and Public Health, the average person spends over 8 hours a day sitting down. Even for those who exercise regularly, this amount of sitting is detrimental to heart health.
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Decrease Your Sitting Time
Stand up and stretch every 30 minutes of sitting
Take a 15 minute walk every 2 hours of sitting
Do what work you can while standing, such as making phone calls or talking to fellow employees in person instead of emailing them
Consider an adjustable height desk that will allow you to work on the computer while standing
Walk on a treadmill while watching TV or playing video games
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Until recent generations, people spent most of their day in motion. Society required them to farm, hunt, build, carry, and mostly travel on foot. However, technological advancements have significantly decreased our activity levels. Our bodies were not designed to spend so much time sitting still. When we sit for too long, our bodies begin to shut down. Our circulation decreases, our fat-burning enzymes become inactive, and our bodies use less blood sugar. In addition to heart disease, this can lead to bowel cancer, diabetes, back problems, obesity, and depression.
Several studies have detailed the health risks of too much time sitting. One 13 year study looking at over 120,000 individuals with no history of serious diseases found that men who sat more than 6 hours a day were 18 percent more likely to die during the time period studied than those who sat fewer than three hours a day. The risk was even higher for women. Women who reported sitting for more than six hours a day were 37 percent more likely to die than those who sat fewer than three hours. Another study found that people who spend four or more hours a day recreationally sitting—watching television, playing video games, or surfing the internet—are 80 percent more likely to die of heart disease than those who spent less than two hours a day recreationally sitting. A Canadian Fitness and Lifestyle Research Institute study of 17,000 individuals summed it up by stating that the longer you spend sitting each day, the more likely you are to die an early death no matter how fit you are.
Exercising regularly is not enough to counteract the negative effects of long durations of sitting. A 2009 study showed that those who take more breaks throughout the day tended to be slimmer and have lower body mass indexes than those who did not, regardless of how much they exercised. Even short breaks, such as standing and stretching for 30 seconds, can significantly improve your heart health.
To minimize the health risks, stand up and move around at least once every 30 minutes. For every two hours you spend sitting, take a 5 to 15 minute walk. Many activities that you currently do sitting can be done while standing or walking, such as talking on the phone, watching television, or playing video games.
Even minor changes in your routine could significantly decrease your risk of heart disease, as well as improve your overall health.
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Rusty Haskell
