Can Your Office Chair Cause an Early Death?

Sitting and Heart Disease…Is There a Connection?

Is Your Office Chair Killing You?

A study published in the International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity studied 63,048 middle-aged Australian men who sat for more than four hours a day.  The results?  They were more likely to have chronic disease like high blood pressure, heart disease, diabetes and cancer–even if they were at the proper weight and regularly exercised!

The solution?      Less Sitting and more moving.

You burn three times as many calories standing as you do sitting.  The muscle contraction required for standing seem to trigger processes designed to break down fats and sugars.  When you sit, muscle contractions cease, and these metabolic processes stall.

• If you sit at a desk all day, get up at least once an hour and walk around.  Better yet, create a standing desk.
• Watch less television.  Besides squandering your life in front of the tube, watching television while sitting down can shorten your life expectancy.
• Don’t sit if you can stand.  When putting on makeup, blow-drying your hair or talking on the phone, stand rather than sit.
• At the office, have meetings while standing up.  Not only are they better for you, they tend to be shorter and many report getting more done.

It’s easy to see how heavy lifting and physical labor can contribute to back pain and other spinal problems.  But the reverse may be even more dangerous.  Turns out, the more you sit, the earlier you may die – regardless of how fit you are.