Don’t Just Sit There – Do Something
Although sitting seems to be a natural and comfortable thing to do, our bodies just aren’t designed to do it as much as we do and we do it more these days than ever before. I’ve read a number of articles recently that alluded to sitting down being more hazardous to your health than smoking and even calling sitting the “new smoking”. For years, some smokers have justified their addiction (no it is not a habit) as actually having the health benefit of making them get up and walk outside occasionally, that has been met with serious disdain, until now! Some Doctors are saying that 1 hour spent sitting down will shorten your life by 22 minutes whereas a cigarette will shorten it by only 11 minutes (just did the maths and 20 cigs a day would be the same as sitting for 10 hours). See details here
The LA Times reported recently that sitting at your desk all day may improve the size of your bank account and improve your chances of getting a promotion — but may also improve your chances of diabetes, heart disease or premature death. A study published in the journal Diabetologia in November 2012 reported on the results of 18 studies with almost 800k participants. When comparing those who sat all day for a living to those who stood or moved around, researchers found risks of diabetes to be up by (112%), cardiovascular events (147%), death from heart/lung problems (90%) and death overall up by (49%).
Coincidently, Rob Long just sent me a link to this article from yesterdays Canberra Times Blog, who’s author must have read the same recent articles that I did. Its a very good, well balanced report of someone’s personal experience and very well worth a read SEE THE WHOLE ARTICLE HERE
I quit sitting – by Alexandra Cain October 09, 2014
Sitting and standing: it’s important to have options.
I’ve been busy recently, so busy that I’ve pretty much worked every day for six weeks, sitting at my desk for up to 10 hours a day, sometimes more.
While great for paying the mortgage, it has not been so great for my body. I ended up with proximal hamstring insertional tendinapathy. That’s a fancy way of saying I’ve damaged the tendon that joins my hamstring to the bone at the base of my bottom. Basically, this has been caused by sitting too much, although there were a number of other contributing factors I won’t bore you with.
My chiro recommended I look into a standing desk, and while it has been reasonably tricky to get used to, it has vastly improved my injury. So I thought I’d tell you a bit about how I managed my transition to a standing desk, just in case other people might also benefit from not sitting too much, given every other day we’re told that sitting is the new smoking. SEE THE WHOLE ARTICLE HERE
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