Get up, stand up
With the cooler weather and shorter days upon us, sinking onto the couch to binge on Netflix or social media sounds pretty appealing. But while rest and relaxation are important, Dr Marissa Kellaher says sitting too long can have negative impacts on health and longevity.
Over recent years, adults (and kids) in industrialized countries have been spending more of their day sitting. A combination of technological advances, working from home, longer commutes, and screens, means many of us sit at a desk all day, sit in a car to drive home, then sit all evening, watching TV or looking at screens.
It’s slowly killing us.
‘Sitting disease’ is a term coined to describe the negative health effects of sitting too much.
In the US, the average person can spend up to 15 hours per day sitting - and while we don’t have recent New Zealand data, we’re probably not far behind. And research shows that lack of movement during the day - even if we exercise during our leisure hours - takes a massive toll on our health.
Women who consistently sit for more than 6 hours per day have a 94% higher risk of early death than those who are more active, the risk to men is 48% higher. Sitting for more than 6-8 hours per day (or TV watching for more than 3-4 hours) increases the risk of over 30 diseases, including diabetes, cancer, dementia, obesity and mental illness.
The New Zealand Heart Foundation has even released a position statement on sitting, stating people who sit the most have an almost 30% higher risk of heart disease.
The health risks of sitting increase the longer we sit, with the highest risks in people who sit for 9.5 hours per day or more.
Getting 60-75 minutes of moderate exercise each day can help counteract the effects of sitting, but if we still spend most of our day sitting (especially if we sit more than 10 hours per day), the health risks unfortunately don’t just disappear.
So what can we do about it? Move!
Research shows that simply moving around for 5 minutes after every 30 minutes of sitting can almost completely counteract the effects of sitting. It reduces blood pressure by 4-5 points, improves blood sugar levels after meals by up to 60%, boosts our mood, and even reduces fatigue and brain fog. And the more we can stand and move during the day, the better.
Even if you can’t get a walk in, just standing for 10 minutes every hour makes a big difference for health (ideally doing some stretches in this time, too.)
Short bursts of high intensity exercise such as squats, running on the spot, star jumps and lunges are also great.