Sitting all day will shave years off your life!

A huge problem that does not get talked about is sitting all day .  There are currently 10,000 research publications that show prolonged sitting is very harmful to your health and is the start of many chronic diseases, two of which include type 2 diabetes and obesity (which then leads to many other health conditions).  When a person goes from sitting to standing, systems in the body that process blood sugar, triglycerides and cholesterol are activated.  The simple act of carrying your bodyweight upon your legs activates these systems to perform at a higher level.  Even if you exercise for 30 minutes, 5 days per week but continue to sit for most of the day (as in a desk job) your body is subjected to an abnormality called “active couch potato syndrome (ACPS).”  ACPS is associated with increased waist size, poor blood pressure and sugar levels.  Studies suggest that people who sit all day long have a life span that on average is 10 years less than people who do not.  Medical researchers recommend to avoid sitting for more than 50 minutes out of every hour.  Preferably, limit sitting to three hours or less.  Consider a standing work station, walking while on the phone, standing up and down as much as possible, choosing stairs and swapping out your desk chair for an exercise ball (which uses constant core muscle contraction to stay up right). For those afraid of exercise, recent studies shows that moderate exercise, which is defined as exerting yourself to the point where you are just slightly winded but can carry on a conversation – improves risk of dying early (from any health related cause) two times better than vigorous exercise and that more of that type of exercise is better and cannot be overdone.

Author

Dr J. Zimmerman, Chiropractor Dr. Zimmerman is a practicing chiropractor from Galloway, NJ with 30 years of chiropractic practice.