Do You Work in a Office? Are You Sitting All Day? It is Not How Long you Sit but How Often You Get Up!

Do You Work in a Office? Are You Sitting All Day? It is Not How Long you Sit but How Often You Get Up!

Sitting down too much is a huge problem in today's society, with rising levels of obesity and heart disease. Importantly it is the habits that we develop when we are young that can set us up for a whole host of problems later in life. But why are we sitting down a lot more these days?

 If you sit all day at an office and worry about its effect on your weight and health, take a few breaks.

That’s the advice from a new study that finds that people who sit for extended periods of time without taking short breaks are at higher risk for heart disease than those who take more frequent timeouts to stand up and walk around.

The cardiovascular risk that stems from remaining sedentary for prolonged periods of time (at the office, for example) manifests itself in the form of larger waists, higher blood pressure, higher levels of triglycerides, increased body inflammation and lower levels of “good” cholesterol, the authors noted.

What’s more, the negative impact of such lengthy bouts of inactivity seems to apply even to those who routinely go to the gym.

Even if you exercise for 30 to 60 minutes a day, what you do for the rest of the day may also be important for your cardiovascular health. This research suggests that even small changes to a person’s activity levels (as little as standing up regularly) might help to lower cardiovascular risk. These changes can be readily incorporated into the person’s day-to-day life (including the work environment). Stand up, move more, more often, could be used as a slogan to help get this message across.

For example, while at work consider standing while on the phone or in a meeting, choosing to walk over to colleagues rather than e-mailing or calling them, and using the stairs to access their work area and/or bathrooms.

Reasons We Are Sitting For Longer
As our world and generation has evolved, we have become a lot less active and this is starting at a very early age. Here are some reasons why we are sitting for longer.

Television
Television is a huge part of peoples lives, with the emergence of huge screens, HD, 3D and hundreds of channels. People are staying in more as bigger percentages of their household income now go to mortgage payments, this has led to increasing amounts of television being watched.

Video Games
What child does not have a games console these days? Playing video games is now the most popular activity amongst the majority of children (and plenty of adults play them as well). Gone are the days when children were more active because they were always playing out.

The Internet
It may be one of the most amazing developments of our generation, but the internet is hardly keeping us active. All that surfing, shopping and social networking is keeping us sitting down for longer.

The Job Market
The decline in the manufacturing industry as led to more office based jobs, such as call centres. We are spending more time sitting down at work.

But what can we do about all this sitting down and what are the dangers of sitting too much?

The Dangers Of Sitting Too Much
We are all sitting for longer periods than ever before and this is bad news for our waistlines. Prolonged periods of sitting slow your metabolism right down, and it is still effected when you become more active later on. Fat burning is slowed by persistent sitting, and it has also been linked to obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular disease. The longer that you sit down, the more depleted your energy levels become and the more de-motivated you are to get moving.

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