Humans are not sedentary creatures.
It is only logical that the human body was not created to sit still for many hours during the day. Research has proven that how much we sit has serious consequences for our weight, our posture, and even on our lifespan. Human beings did not start out with the lifestyle that most people in the western world now have. We lived on our feet, and not on our bottoms. Now that we have desk jobs, televisions, transport, and computers, most humans spend more time sitting on our bottoms the we spend sleeping. Our bodies were not meant to sit that much. In fact, sitting for more than 6 hours a day makes you 40% likelier to die within 50 years than someone who sits less than 3 hours a day. Even if you exercise regularly.
Hard to admit, but easy to believe: eight in 10 Americans spend nearly every single minute of their workday sitting behind a desk, according to research published in the journal PLOS One. Yikes.
But “the problems are not with sitting itself, but with passively sitting,” says Mark Schneider, a personal trainer at Movement Minneapolis. “Sitting is easy. If it took effort, fewer people would do it. Because of its ease, it’s common to do it to excess — and anything done to excess will be detrimental.”
As a result, people are burning around 120 to 140 fewer calories per workday than they did in 1960, resulting in a slow creep of weight gain. (This could tally up to about a nine-pound-a-year margin you’ll need to burn off.) Even scarier than the scale impact? The health impact. By sitting all day, you’re subjecting your body to a whole lot of bad.
1. You Can Say Goodbye to Good Cholesterol After Just 2 Hours of Sitting
Just like a light switch, electrical activity flips off the moment your butt hits the chair. “Calorie burning is significantly reduced and lipoprotein lipase, an enzyme that assists with the breakdown of fat, dramatically and rapidly drops,” says Dominique Wakefield, a Michigan-based health and fitness expert for the American Council on Exercise (ACE). That enzyme also plays a role in changing low-density lipoprotein (bad cholesterol) to high-density lipoprotein (good cholesterol). Sitting for eight or more hours a day — a pretty standard amount of time for people who work desk jobs! — decreases the enzyme’s ability to convert bad to good by 95 percent, scientists at The Ohio State University have found.
2. Your Muscles Will Ache — Like, All the Time
Tune in to how you’re sitting as you read this paragraph. Wait! Don’t move a muscle quite yet. Just sit still. Ask yourself: How does the seat feel? How is your head angled and where are your feet placed? How do the arm rests impact your arm alignment?
“The lack of attention to these things is what causes the problem. Sitting well, so it has minimal negative effects on you, is a skill. And like any skill it will take some effort to learn, but eventually will become habitual,” Schneider says.
Be mindful of your posture and adjust alignment as needed, says Jessica Matthews, a personal training expert for ACE who’s based in San Diego. “While standing, your ear, shoulder, hip, knee and ankle should form a straight line with the spine in an ‘S’ shape, due to its natural curvature. This also applies while in a seated position, except that the ear, shoulder, and hip should align, and the knee and ankle should align.”
Until you master pro-level sitting, expect tight hip muscles, increased back and neck pain, and possible breathing difficulties, since the rounded shoulder, tucked chin posture decreases the ability of your ribs to expand, Schneider says.
3. You’re 2 ½ Times More Likely to Struggle With Obesity
As mentioned above, while sitting, your calorie-burning potential crawls slower than the wait for the next season of Game of Thrones. In fact, ACE reports you’re more than twice as likely to be obese if you sit for six hours per day compared to just 30 minutes per day. Surprisingly, sitting too much is twice as dangerous for your wellbeing as being obese, says a study published in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.
4. Your Risk for Cancer, Type 2 Diabetes, and Cardiovascular Disease Will Climb
Beyond making you gain extra pounds, being too stationary can do a number on your longevity. “Sitting increases risk of death up to 40 percent. Inactivity is killing people and is arguably one of this generation’s greatest health threats,” Wakefield says. Cancer, diabetes and cardiovascular disease risks are more stark when overall physical activity levels are low, too, according to a review in the Annals of Internal Medicine.
5. Your Overall Mortality Risk Jumps
Nearly four percent of all deaths can be traced back to sitting too much, says a study in the American Journal of Preventative Medicine. ACE adds a surprising stat: Sitting less than three hours a day can add two years to your life. On the flip side, sitting for more than six hours and racking up a limited amount of exercise can raise overall risk of death by 94 percent.
Pro Staff Institute Physical Therapy says do this:
Prolonged sitting has been described as the new smoking by many media outlets in recent years. Though this may seem exaggerated, it carries some degree of truth once you look more closely.
From the commute to work, to the office chair and then the couch at home, people are spending more time seated than ever, and research shows that is wreaking havoc on our bodies. A 2014 study by the American Heart Association involving over 84,000 participants, aged 45-69, found that men who spend five or more hours a day sitting were 34% more likely to develop heart failure than men who sit less than two hours a day outside work. The American Physical Therapy Association recommends two to four hours of standing and light activity during the workday
Cigarettes were not thought to cause of lung cancer or other serious diseases until the 1950s. There was even a time in history where cigarette brands had phrases like “doctor-recommended” in their advertisements. Like the cigarette industry in the 1920s, the effects of prolonged sitting throughout the workday has largely been ignored and understudied until recently.
To gain further insight on this workplace epidemic, let’s look at why prolonged sitting is a problem and what we can do to correct our posture while sitting at the desk as well as some tips to increase physical activity while at work.
Prevent Prolonged Sitting with Standing Desks
Standing desks are a popular workplace trend and are pretty self-explanatory. Instead of prolonged sitting for the duration of the workday, the user can adjust the height of the desk to accommodate a standing or sitting position. There are also desk converters that allow you turn your existing desk into a standing one without having to buy all new office furniture.
Using a standing desk can provide you with breaks from sitting without requiring you to move from your comfortable work surroundings. If you choose to use a standing desk, remember to use the standing feature frequently.
Take Walking Breaks When Possible
Does your job require you to work in a stationary position? There are many ways that you can integrate some standing and movement into your workday without drastically interrupting your usual work routine.
Some ideas to break from prolonged sitting at work are: taking a standing or walking break from working every 20-30 minutes, doing a lap around the office, jogging up a few flights of stairs, walking to get lunch, and stretching. It is important to do whatever you can to add some movement into your nine-to-five. Small changes each day can help prevent the harmful effects of prolonged sitting and assist with improved circulation and posture.
Proper Posture for Sitting at Your Desk:
Set your desk chair so your feet are flat on the floor, your knees equal to, or slightly lower than your hips with your hips pushed as far back as possible. Support your upper and lower back with a rolled towel and adjust the back of your chair to about a 100-degree reclined angle. Your computer screen should be directly in front of you, with the top of the screen positioned approximately 2-3 inches above eye level and sit at an arm’s length away from the screen. Lastly, if possible adjust the armrests so that your shoulders are relaxed.
We can discuss ergonomics until we’re blue in the face, but even the most perfectly set workstation will not protect your body from the prolonged, static postures that most jobs “demand.”
Integrating more standing and movement into your daily routine at work can drastically improve your health and well-being. Do you feel pain or discomfort as a result of your prolonged sitting in the workplace? Make an appointment with your nearest Pro Staff location by requesting one online or by calling one of our locations nearest you. Go to www.prostaffpt.com for details.