The Sitting Disease: Sitting is the New Smoking
Standing while you are working may seem unusual, but it’s actually a practice with a long tradition. Winston Churchill, Ernest Hemingway, and Benjamin Franklin all worked at standing desks.
Every hour of TV that people watch, presumably while sitting, cuts about 22 minutes from their lifespan, according to an Australian study published in October 2012 in the British Journal of Sports Medicine. By contrast, it’s estimated that smokers shorten their lives by about 11 minutes per cigarette. This is surprising to most people, who spend most of their day sitting at a desk but who would never consider smoking.
So what’s the solution?
If you regularly sit at a desk, consider trying some of the following techniques to give your body a break from “sitting fatigue”:
- For every one hour that you sit, consider taking a break to stretch or walk.
- Consider sitting on an exercise ball. Known as “active sitting,” this allows the core muscle of your legs to engage and hold you on the ball rather than letting gravity take over.
- Try a sit-stand workstation, such as an adjustable desk or switching back and forth between a tall desk and a short desk.
- Invest in a treadmill or bike desk.
- Invest in a professional ergonomic evaluation and assessment from a licensed Physical Therapist.
If you spend most of your day sitting, you’re likely suffering from back pain, neck pain, chronic body pain, obesity, heart disease, even depression.
You wonder what it would feel like to truly be pain-free. You’ve tried exercises, stretches, massages, chiropractors, pain pills, and everything in between, but you don’t know how the pain will ever go away if you’re sitting at your desk working all day.
The Sitting Disease is a science-backed, simple, action-oriented guidebook with a strategic system for sustainable pain relief. Learn more here.