Delray Beach, FL – You don’t have to be a physiologist to understand how unhealthy it is to spend 8 or 10 hours a day sitting on your butt.
The stiffness you feel when you get up should be an obvious warning. Or the simple logic of recognizing how the body is designed (to move on two feet) and the consequences of ignoring that.
You’re probably aware that countless studies have linked extended sedentary behavior – prolonged sitting, in particular – to not only spinal, muscular, and joint problems but a plethora of other conditions. These include obesity, high blood pressure, high blood sugar, abnormal cholesterol levels, and an increased risk of diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and some cancers.
Note: We are talking about any form of sitting – in front of a screen, in front of a steering wheel, or in front of a keyboard.
And although I think of myself as fairly active because I walk for 40 minutes and exercise for an hour each day, if you add up the time I spend reading, writing, or driving… I’m probably in a sitting position for 8 to 12 hours.
Cripes!
An Unexpected Solution to This Problem
There’s plenty of science backing up the indisputable fact that people who are physically active have much better prospects of staying healthy and living longer. Unfortunately, many of us have jobs (and lifestyles) that keep us glued to our seats.
A new study from the University of Otago confirms the risks of prolonged sitting. But it also provides a new and welcome way to neutralize the negative effects.
This study is particularly interesting because it included data from 44 previous studies that had focused not on the effect of prolonged sitting alone but on what happened when the sitter stood up to do… just about anything.
The news was good. And the beneficial changes that the researchers observed – including such things as improved glucose, insulin, and triglyceride levels, blood pressure, and vascular function – were not affected by the intensity of the activity or the age or weight of the participant.
Even light-intensity activity every 30 minutes was significant.
What does this mean?
To me, it means that I should go back to something I did many years ago. It was a suggestion by the legendary copywriter Gene Schwartz, who had developed it as a way to maintain his creativity for a full day.
When Gene sat down to write, he’d set an egg timer to 33 minutes. (This was before the digital age.) Then he’d get to work. When the timer buzzed, he’d stand up and walk around or play with his pet or make himself a cup of coffee.
When I experimented with Gene’s routine, I found it to be very helpful in terms of my creativity and productivity. But I had no idea that periodically getting out of my chair could be so beneficial to my overall health.
Now I know. So that’s my new routine: Stand up every 30 minutes. Actually, I’ll make it every 28 minutes and then move for two. That’s more anal. More my style.
And I won’t use the timer on my iPhone. I’m going to use that egg timer.
