The ills of Sitting too long!
Prolonged sitting significantly impacts your cardiovascular and metabolic function. Studies show that these risk correlations hold true no matter how much you exercise.
In one recent study, six hours of uninterrupted sitting was found to counteract the positive health benefits of one hour of exercise.
Beneficial molecular effects are activated simply by carrying your body-weight upon your legs. Those cellular mechanisms are also responsible for pushing fuels into your cells.
As a general guideline, if you’ve been sitting for an hour, you’ve sat too long. At minimum, you should not sit for more than 50 minutes out of every hour.
The problem is that an hour of exercise here and there, even if it’s vigorous, cannot counteract the harm incurred during the hours you’re sitting still. For example, one recent study3 found that six hours of uninterrupted sitting effectively counteracted the positive health benefits of a whole hour of exercise.
Basically, this means that even if you spend two to three hours in the gym each week, if you have a full-time sit-down job, many of those exercise benefits are simply evaporated.
I think it’s quite clear that you need both intense exercise, and daily intermittent or non-exercise movement in order to optimize your health and prolong your life. It’s not a matter of choosing one over the other. You really do need both.
As for intermittent movement, the key, experts say, is to avoid sitting for more than 50 minutes out of each hour. Ideally, you’d want to sit for a maximum of about three hours a day—a far cry from today’s norm.
The average American office worker can sit for 13 to 15 hours a day! This means that most people need to figure out how to get out of their chair for several hours each day.
Get your Step Count Up
Simple tips to help get you moving
At first, you may be surprised to realize just how little you move each day. Setting a goal of say 7-10,000 steps a day (which is just over three to five miles, or 6-9 kilometers) can go a long way toward getting more movement into your life.
1. Walk across the hall to talk to a coworker instead of sending an email
2. Take the stairs instead of the elevator
3. Park your car further away from the entrance
4. Take a longer, roundabout way to your desk
5. Organize the layout of your office space in such a way that you have to stand up to reach oft-used files, the telephone, or your printer, rather than having everything within easy reach.
6. Use an exercise ball for a chair. Unlike sitting in a chair, sitting on an exercise ball engages your core muscles and helps improve balance and flexibility. Occasional bouncing can also help your body interact with gravity to a greater degree than sitting on a stationary chair. But this is a concession and it is still sitting, so standing would be a better option.
7. Alternatively, use an upright wooden chair with no armrest, which will force you to sit up straight, and encourage shifting your body more frequently than a cushy office chair.
8. Set a timer to remind you to stand up and move about for at least 10 minutes each hour. You can either walk, stand, or take the opportunity to do a few simple exercises by your desk.
Source; Dr. Joseph Mercola
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