How your chair is killing you slowly! (Sitting is the new smoking)

We all are aware that too much consumption of Fries, Burgers, Donought, Cigarettes, Alcohol etc... all have negative effects on our health, at least we know it and we limit them every day... however, what kills us are really those things we do not think about..Things we use so regularly that we do not think that its constant use can actually be killing us.... the main culprit is the CHAIR... little wonder, "Sitting," says Dr. James Levine, an endocrinologist at the Mayo Clinic who has researched for the last 15 years on the dangers of a sedentary life , "is the new smoking.

We are given legs for a reason, most 3rd world countries walk very long distances a day to their different destinations , however, most folks living in the modern world spend entire day sitting down... Which is not how it is supposed to be as our ancestors were hunters and gatherers not sitters... for us we have formed the habit of excessive sitting... from the bed to sitting on the toilet, afterwards sit on the breakfast table, then sit on the car as we drive to work and then spend entire day sitting on the desk and then sit driving back home to a comfortable chair watching TV before we craw to bed to recover from all the physical exhaustion of the day...when we go out to have some nice time, we sit on a restaurant chair or in a movie theater, then back in our car sitting to get home and sit in dining table before sitting to watch TV and later retire to bed… sitting all day is far worse for you than you might think...

Hamza Ali of CNBC, in a report on "Why your chair might be killing you" Dr. James Levine Stated emphatically that "Sitting is more dangerous than smoking, kills more people than HIV and is more treacherous than parachuting. We are sitting ourselves to death," says Levine, a professor of medicine at the U.S.-based Mayo Clinic, in his book "Get Up!: Why Your Chair is Killing You and What You Can Do About It".

Dr. Levines’s based his claims on a study of “non-exercise activity thermogenesis” or for short NEAT, which is centered on amount of energy expended in doing everything except exercise, eating and sleeping. NEAT activities includes taking a walk, going to work, doing some garden work, house duties etc and the more active your job schedule is at a given time, the more NEAT calories you are burning. NEAT used to be a part of our daily activity during those days we walk more. Like when we usually walk to the post office to send or pick some posts, walking to the grocery shop or nearby market, walk to the park and stroll along, walk to our office and walk back home, but these days things have changed no thanks to technologies as we now do almost everything from the comfort of a chair. Little wonder these days people are getting more lazy and obese even with so many fitness outfits around than few generations back. A far cry from our grandparents with fewer fitness centers than what we have today.

Dr. James Levine on Excessive seating...

Furthermore, Jen Christensen (a CNN reporter), on April 30, 2015 inquiring if “sitting is the new smoking?” found out that “Sitting will kill you, even if you exercise” it is regrettable that the modern world is constructed to keep us sitting down both while at work, driving even at home watching a midnight movie we are always sitting down. Consequently as confirmed by a study in Internal Medicine, this kind of sedentary activity increases ones chances of getting a disease condition that can kill prematurely even if we engage in exercise. This conclusion was reached after analyzing 47 studies of sedentary behavior by researchers in Toronto, and after adjusting their data to incorporate the level of exercise by a person, they found out that the length of time we usually take in sitting down in a day outweighs the gains we achieve from exercise. However, the more you exercise daily, the lower the impact of sedentary behavior to your system. More so, from the studies, it was discovered that sedentary behavior can result to untimely death from cardiovascular issues, cancer plus type 2 diabetes as prolonged seating of up to 8 to 12 hrs a day can lead to diabetes by 90%. Also, the W.H.O pointed out that Physical inactivity has been identified as number four leading risk factor to death around the world.

In the same vein, Maria Masters of NBC NEWS on Oct 2010, in a report on “Men's Health” , captioned ‘Why your desk job is slowly killing you-Even if you exercise, the more hours a day you sit, the greater your risk of early death.” In the report, Marc Hamilton, PhD, a physiologist and professor at the Pennington Biomedical Research Center, in Baton Rouge, Louisiana submission which is also supported by many researchers is that the number of time you exercise and number of time you spend sitting are completely separate factors for heart disease risks. From new evidence, the more hours in a day you sit the greater your chance of dying an early death not withstanding how much you exercise or how well build or trimmed body you have as your physique can’t protect you from the negative effects of your chair. However, it is not only your heart that is at risk from too much sitting, also your hips, spine and shoulders could also suffer from the effect of too much sitting as such; your chair can ruin you from head to your toe.

Therefore, if you still insist to sit all day, below are ways excessive sitting can harm you…

As regards the HEART – People who live a sedentary life are up to twice more likely to die or develop diabetes and heart disease than those who lead an active life and move around more often.

ARMS –once there is sustained reduction of physical activity, it can lead to hypertension or high blood pressure.

STOMACH –Sitting for a very long period can lead to obesity and colon cancer. Enzymes in the blood vessels of muscles in charge for burning fat shut down resulting to the disruption of the body’s process of metabolizing fuels.

NECK –too much sitting can caused fluid to retain in the legs during the day and moves to the neck at night which can contributes to sleep apnea. The muscles of the neck are stressed leading to pain.

HEAD – if you sit for a long period of time, there is possibility of blood clots to form which can travel to the brain leading to stroke.

BACK – When one sits for a very long periods of time, such inactivity can result to a high amount of stress on the spine. After a while, this can lead to compression of the spinal disks due to prolonged sitting. Because muscles are tight from pressure, sudden movements can result to injury.

FEET –Poor circulation could lead to numbness in the feet. It can also cause nerve damage or pressure on nerves when you sit for a long period of time.

LUNGS – if you sit most of the day, you are twice as likely to develop a pulmonary embolism, or blood clot.

LEGS –Fluid collects in the legs during prolonged sitting. However, when you stand and walk around, such activity can helps pump it through your body.

What then is the definition of an active life

Peter Katzmarzyk, Ph.D., Hamilton's colleague at Pennington, the nation's leading obesity research center pointed out that "Regularly exercising is not the same as being active," in his submission, Katzmarzyk is referring to the difference between official exercise activity like jugging, weight lifting, swimming etc and so called non exercise activity like walking to your car, cleaning your house or even standing at a place. Katzmarzyk surmised that "A person may hit the gym every day, but if he's sitting a good deal of the rest of the time, he's probably not leading an overall active life,"

Energy expenditure statistics support Katzmarzyk's notion even if you dismiss this as scientific semantics. University of Missouri scientists in a report in 2017 said that people with the highest levels of nonexercise activity although with little to no actual exercise burn significantly more calories a week than those who ran 38 miles a week but gain only a moderate amount of nonexercise activity. Katzmarzyk further says that "It can be as simple as standing more," For example, a “standing” employee like a sales person in a coffee shop, burns about 1,500 calories while on the job, a person behind a desk might burn roughly 1,000 calories. This goes a long way to explaining why people gain 16 pounds on average within 8 months of starting sedentary office work, as reported in a study by University of North Carolina at Wilmington.

Bill Hartman, P.T., C.S.C.S., a Men's Health advisor and physical therapist in Indianapolis, Indiana says "Your body mostly adapts to what you do ” "So if you sit in a chair all day, you will essentially become better adapted to sitting in a chair." The trouble is, that makes you less adept at standing, walking, running, and jumping, all of which a truly healthy human should be able to do with proficiency. Hartman further says that "Older folks have a harder time moving around than younger people do,” "That's not simply because of age; it's because what you do consistently from day to day manifests itself over time, for both good and bad.

How to avoid 'sitting disease'

Go for -Standing offices and classrooms – by going for high desks that keep you regularly on your feet, are one way to address low NEAT, according to Dr. Levine. He argued that more productive workforces are evident in workplaces in which people stand and move. For Levine, "What is critically important is that companies that deploy these types of programs show increased hardcode productivity of around 11 percent,” Dr. Levine also pointed to studies run in more active classrooms across the U.S, Germany & Sweden, which found "on average, kid's grades improve 10-15 percent against (average) child equivalents". Mike Mayos, director of standing desk company “VariDesk” says that "Demand has gone up enormously,”. It comes, he adds, increasingly from individuals looking out for their own wellbeing. While sitting burns 1.02 calories a minute, standing burns 1.36, which equates to 160 extra calories burned per day.

However, the standing office has come under serious criticism from some quarters, with critics arguing that standing at your desk all day has its own negative implications on ones health. Research conducted by the Toronto Workers Health & Safety Centre found that standing for prolonged periods could lead to, among other things, sore backs, feet and varicose veins.
More so, Dan Kois a columnist with The New York Times Magazine, who underwent a month-long standing experiment, also highlighted possible social problems with the standing desk in an article entitled "Sitting, the great leveler." "From the lowliest peasant to the mightiest pharaoh, who doesn't enjoy a good sit?" Kois wrote, quoting Mr Burns from The Simpsons. "I had never really thought about the social implications of standing versus sitting until this month brought them to the fore."

However, for those who prefer to take a seat, all hope is not lost, with a recent study indicating that exercise may offset the dangers of sitting. According to researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center, one hour of physical exercise could counteract the effects of sitting for six to seven hours a day.

More so, you can exercise as you work: try and engage in gentle exercises that expend energy and increase the bodies metabolic rate. Try the leg raise: sit in your chair, extend one leg out in front and hold for two seconds. Then raise it as high as you can, and hold again for two seconds. Repeat on each leg 15 times. Do such regularly, it really helps

Conclusion: in this post, I have highlighted how excessive sitting on a chair can lead to many diseases and untimely death even while on daily exercise… we are not designed to sit but to be upright and since half of our body is our legs, which is so for a reason, we should use them!. Therefore, get out of that sitting habit, start walking. Avoid the elevator and take the stairs and take walking breaks during the day, drink lots of water, eat right, get enough rest after the days stressful job. If you value your life, Get Off Your Chair, Use your legs more!

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Do also check my former post below…
Benefits of raising and eating Organic Chickens and Eggs
https://steemit.com/health/@kenhudoy/benefits-of-raising-and-eating-organic-chickens-and-eggs

Sources:
https://www.cnbc.com/2014/08/18/why-your-chair-might-be-killing-you.html
http://edition.cnn.com/2015/01/21/health/sitting-will-kill-you/index.html
http://standingatyourdesk.com/nine-ways-excessive-sitting-can-harm-you/
http://www.nbcnews.com/id/39523298/ns/health-mens_health/t/why-your-desk-job-slowly-killing-you/#.Wa6wo_iGPMw
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health-fitness/body/sitting-disease-is-killing-us-and-exercise-doesnt-help/
Images & Video sources: Google & Standingatyourdesk