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Why Prolonged Sitting is Killing You ?!

How many hours do you SIT every day? In our modern society, we almost SIT for everything! Such as driving, watching movies, drinking coffee, enjoying a meal or working with computers…


The statistics showed Americans are sitting averagely over 10 hours every day!

However, human beings are not born to sit for long hours in nature !

 

Researchers already warned excessive sitting or sedentary time leads to serious health issues, here are some scary findings from the clinical studies:

✨ Your metabolism slow down 90% after only 30 minutes of sitting.

✨ After two hours of sitting, your good cholesterol drops 20%.

✨ People who sit more than 3 hours watching TV are 64% more likely to die from heart disease.

 

✨ A retrospective research with 123,216 healthy participants compared people who sit less than 3 hours or over 6 hours daily, the authors found out women in the long sitting group were

 

94% more likely to die during the 13 years follow-up in the study.

 

 

✨ What’s more, a recent systematic review study (2015) which analysed 47 related scientific papers also indicated:

Prolonged sedentary time is strongly associated with disease incidence and mortality risk. 

Such as type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and cancer .

 

✨ Worst of all, the above study even showed that

 

Even if you exercise regularly, the physical activity cannot counteract the risks that came with excessive sitting.

 

Then what should we do? What if my job requires me to sit down all the time? An article from British Journal of Sports Medicine (June 2015) advocated every office worker should

 

Stand up at least 2 hours daily during your working hours

 

In another words, if you work 8 hours a day, you should take a 15 minutes stretching break hourly (or 30 mins rest every 2 hours) , also make sure you sit with a proper ergonomic setup. You can try sitting on an active chair, which allow you to change postures or engage your core muscles when long sitting is inevitable.

 

Now stand up and exercise!

 

All you need is just 5 minutes for office stretching exercises! Do not allow prolonged sitting to kill your health!!

 

 


Reference:

Alpa V. Patel, Leslie Bernstein, Anusila Deka, Heather Spencer Feigelson, Peter T. Campbell, Susan M. Gapstur, Graham A. Colditz, Michael J. Thun; Leisure Time Spent Sitting in Relation to Total Mortality in a Prospective Cohort of US Adults. Am J Epidemiol 2010; 172 (4): 419-429.

Biswas A, Oh PI, Faulkner GE, Bajaj RR, Silver MA, Mitchell MS, et al. Sedentary Time and Its Association With Risk for Disease Incidence, Mortality, and Hospitalization in Adults: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis. Ann Intern Med. 2015;162:123-132

Andrew Tan, OTR/L, CHT, CKTP, CEAS
Latest posts by Andrew Tan, OTR/L, CHT, CKTP, CEAS (see all)

Andrew Tan, OTR/L, CHT, CKTP, CEAS

The founder of "Rehab For A Better Life", specialized in ergonomic consultation, rehabilitation for upper extremity injuries, sports injuries and work-related injuries. Andrew believes rehab-related knowledge should be easy to learn and follow at home, because "knowledge is power only when we can share it" !

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