Home Blogs Modern Medicine Sitting Disease – a new problem?
We have all seen the recommendation that we need to exercise more. Couch potatoes have been given warnings. Programs to get the population exercising more have been initiated by governments. Health Ministers have long been campaigning to get people to do more exercise, but research has shown that even if you spend an hour every night in the gym, prolonged periods of inactivity are still bad for your health. The way the body deals with sugars and fats when sitting down has been linked to increased risk of diabetes and heart disease, and with some people now sitting for 12 hours a day, whether at work, playing you’re your smartphone, watching TV or in a car, we are the most sedentary humans in history and we could be sitting on a health time bomb.
For many people, their job entails their being desk-bound for the working day, so what is the answer for these people? What is now being proposed to counter the effects brought on by prolonged sitting, is introducing standing periods to a working day which it is claimed results in improved blood circulation which increases levels of energy, concentration and productivity.
Mind you, ‘standing’ all day has its problems healthwise as well, mainly related to the spine, hips joints, knees and ankles. So what is the answer to all this?
Now, despite Winston Churchill and Leonardo da Vinci, standing down and sitting up has its limitations. Interspersed with positional changes in the office environment, there is something else you can do – and that is called ‘walking’.
How many of you telephone others in your workplace? Just about all of you? There is one chap in the next office to mine who rings me, rather than walking the 20 meters to talk to me face to face!
So here is the answer. Sit for an hour, walk for 10 minutes, stand for an hour, walk for 10 minutes, sit for another hour then walk to lunch, and repeat in the afternoon. Try it!
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