Sitting on your ass could kill you

What if I told you that sitting on your ass could kill you? According to a recent study into the health risks of a sedentary lifestyle, the next time you find yourself sitting in front of the TV all night, you may want to reconsider your nighttime activities…

How much time a day do you regularly devote to physical activity? Did you know that adults should spend at least 30 minutes a day doing physical activity? Well, they should if you care about your health.

If you’re reading this column, you’ll probably be sitting at your desk. In this case, you won’t get up and walk around, and the consequence is that you’ll shorten your life by years just by sitting!

A study published a few days ago suggests that prolonged sitting contributed to 70,000 deaths in the UK in 2016 and cost the NHS £700 million a year. For more information on this research, see this Daily Mail article.

This report from the Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health says a sedentary lifestyle is linked to 70,000 deaths per year.

A sedentary lifestyle is a lifestyle that involves little or no physical activity. A person who leads a sedentary lifestyle often sits or lies down for most of the day while engaging in an activity such as reading, socializing, watching TV, playing video games, or using a cell phone/computer. Does that describe what it’s like for you?

It’s actually just a health warning. Sitting can be harmful to your health. Unfortunately, more people seem to be living a sedentary lifestyle than ever before. This is despite much publicity about the health benefits of physical activity.

I have two doctors, my left leg and my right.

GM Trevelyan

Research shows that many of you spend nine hours a day or more sitting down, and not just at work – because your free time is often dominated by screen use, be it watching TV or surfing the Internet on a computer or tablet. This undoubtedly endangers your health.

I was working out at the gym a few mornings ago and was talking to a guy on the bench next door. I see him there most days trying hard. He has Parkinson’s disease, which can only be recognized by a slight tremor in his left arm. He knows how important it is for him to exercise regularly to keep the effects of Parkinson’s disease at bay. We both know how important it is to use our bodies and push them to their limits.

We already knew that sitting for large portions of the day increases the risk of cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, cancer and death and is a burden on healthcare. It is also a major contributor to the obesity epidemic. All because people don’t get enough physical activity.

According to the researchers, the results suggest that 11.6% of all deaths were related to sedentary behavior and that 69,276 deaths in 2016 could have been avoided if sedentary behavior had been eliminated in the UK.

So the message is clear. Too many people spend their free time being sedentary and sitting for hours at work. The price is that it could end up killing you.

This is actually not new. The link between illness and sitting first emerged in the 1950s, when researchers found that London bus drivers were twice as likely to suffer a heart attack as their bus conductor colleagues.

It’s important that you move. To reduce the effects of a sedentary lifestyle, it is important to move more every day.

It doesn’t have to mean major lifestyle changes. All you have to do is start incorporating daily physical activity into your life.

By lifestyle changes I mean a variety of small things you can do that combine to make you much more physically active.

• Avoid sitting in front of a television or computer for long periods of time
• Get up and move around for at least 10 minutes per hour during TV commercial breaks or when working at your desk
• Walk up and down the stairs instead of taking the elevator
• Walk around while talking on the phone
• Limit the time you spend in front of the TV
• Hold walk-and-talk meetings
• For short distances it is better to use the car on foot
• Take your dog for longer walks, get a dog if you don’t already have one.
• Get a hiking partner or join a community activity like dance classes and hiking groups
• Walk or bike to work
• Get off at a bus stop further away from your destination
• Start gardening, mow the lawn, rake the garden and water your plants!
• Play actively with your children or grandchildren

When you walk, your feet, your blood and your spirit move. And movement is life.

Terri Guillemets

For those of you who are ready to take it a step further and truly get healthy through physical activity, you should focus on adding just 30 minutes of additional activity to your day, five days a week. Get a pedometer (a device that counts the number of steps you take). Did you know that 10,000 steps a day is equivalent to half an hour of walking? These 30 minutes would be the best 30 minutes you could spend on your health. According to the World Health Organization, walking 10,000 steps per day is the ideal goal to improve health and reduce health risks caused by inactivity.

If you take anything from today’s article, please make sure you sit less throughout the day, including at work, and try to increase your daily physical activity.

No matter how old you are, physical activity is the best way to take care of our physical and mental health. Hey, it could add years to your life.

I think that I cannot preserve my health and my spirit unless I spend at least four hours a day – and that is usually more – strolling through the woods and over the hills and fields, completely free from all worldly obligations.

Henry David Thoreau