Many health experts are calling sitting the new smoking. How can something so simple and seemingly benign have such incredible consequences to be called the new smoking? ...
We all know standing desks are becoming popular. And there are knee chairs and balance ball chairs that have been around for a few decades, used to protect the back from hours of sitting. But who bloody well knew that we were sending ourselves to an early grave by simply sitting at a desk?! And why is it so dang bad for you anyway?
According to experts, it all boils down to this: the human body was designed to move, to be active all day. People in agrarian communities sit for less than 3 hours/day. Humans were never designed to sit at a desk for 6, 8, 10, 12 hours, as we do.
Dr. James Levine who is co-Director of the Obesity Initiative for the Mayo Clinic wrote an enlightening book on the subject called “Get Up! Why Your Chair is Killing You and What You Can Do About it.” We have to give the guy credit for this massive wake up call. We’d all just be doing our work-outs and sitting all day at the computer working, thinking we were doing a body good, when really… quite the opposite. In fact it doesn’t matter how fit you are, or how much you work out in the morning or evening or at lunch, if you sit for the majority of the day. The molecular mechanisms in play when a person is sedentary for hours are not suddenly reversed by an hour of hot yoga or a 10K run. It just doesn’t work that way. Sitting shuts your system down and tells the body, get ready, this human ain’t got no need for his legs anymore, and maybe, his life...
Rest, i.e. sitting, is designed to be temporary, to give these systems a break and not the other way around. Sitting is not just bad for your back (which I’m acutely aware of) but also your arms, legs, neck, and your metabolism, and your cellular health! There are 10,000 studies and growing that illustrate prolonged sitting is devastating for your health. NASA scientists responsible for monitoring astronauts have shown your body declines rapidly when sitting for prolonged periods. The proof is everywhere.
According to Dr. Levine, “Sitting actually switches off the fundamental fueling systems that integrate what’s going on in the blood stream with what goes on in the muscles and the tissues.” Switches these systems off! Off? This translates to higher blood sugar in people who sit too much, higher blood pressure, more toxins, Levine calls them “growth factors” that could lead to cancer. Yikes! Just from sitting on my arse.
Bottomline: Sitting actively promotes dozens of chronic diseases. Promotes. As in, brings them on, including diabetes. Apparently at a minimum we should be up 10 minutes of every hour. That’s the bare bones minimum.
On the opposite end of the spectrum is standing—all sorts of positive molecular effects come from them, standing, weight bearing on your own two feet. As soon as you stand the cellular systems that process blood sugar, triglycerides and cholesterol – all mediated by insulin, there’s hormones again, our body’s messengers – are activated. Apparently, and I guess it’s kind of obvious now, when you’re crammed into a chair all these systems are shut off!
Now I can attest that my back gets sore when I sit and my food does not digest as well. Do you feel that too? I just got back from vacation, notice the glow, where I moved almost constantly. I wasn’t deliberately working out. I was playing, going to the beach, swimming, surfing, running to the house for snacks, getting on the cruiser bike to pick up dinner or buy a t-shirt or just cruise. I moved for two weeks. I maybe lied on the beach to get warm or sat for a max of 15 minutes at a time to watch the kids. I had no bone or muscle pain, until we flew home. Almost 10 hours of planes, trains, automobiles, and guess what, sciatica, lower back pain, blech.
The solution? Easy. Stand. Move. Home office? Get a standing desk and wiggle, jiggle, move or flow, depending on your style.
On that note, I went to a yoga retreat with one of my favourite yogis, Shiva Rea in November. She’s 50 now and looks amazing, but more importantly, she never has back pain or muscle pain, and if you saw what she can do with her body you may find this shocking. Her reason? Flow. She is constantly fluid, constantly flowing, just a gentle sway to her, like a river, when she’s standing in line, sitting at a desk, talking, in the car, I just picture her kinda like a genie flowing up from the bottle, all misty steamy flowy. Super cool chick. Strong as a brick house. And uber flow… In other words, standing is rarely standing still, most people move naturally.
So, what’s the good news here? The solution is obvious and it’s free. This doesn’t require a pill or a chiropractor or an expert or even a book. It requires you to stand up. Build yourself a standing desk from scraps around your house, or turn the wastebasket over and plop your computer on top. Easy. Get up and stretch. Tell your boss to buy the book so you have an excuse to get up and move at work or maybe she’ll invest in standing desks. Rad. The good news for your company is this: productivity goes up when people move more.
Go ahead and grab one of the books with their tantalizing titles: “Sitting Kills, Moving Heals” or Levine’s “Get Up!” or simply stand the heck up. Happy healthy standing, moving and eating!!
xx Shannon