A Sedentary Lifestyle Can Shorten Your Lifespan: Here’s How
A Sedentary Lifestyle Can Shorten Your Lifespan: Here’s How
The human body is designed for regular physical activity.
Do you love sitting on your sofa at home? Or perhaps, you spend your entire day in an office chair?
Well, it’s only making you physically inactive and unhealthy.
Your cardiovascular system function more efficiently when you are upright.
Physical inactivity has been linked to health problems like heart diseases, obesity, type 2 diabetes and mental issues like depression.
We need to pay more attention to moving.
Read on to learn more on what a sedentary lifestyle is all about.
Also, discover how to be free from a sedentary lifestyle both at home and at work.
What Does Being Sedentary Mean?
If you spend over six hours in one spot, everyday, with no significant physical activity, you’re living a sedentary lifestyle.
Sound familiar?
You have a greater chance of diseases like heart diseases and diabetes when you spend too many hours sitting at work, lying on the couch watching TV.
People who sit for more than six hours per day have a 20% increased risk of mortality compared to those who sit for less than three hours per day.
Unfortunately, many people don't even know they are living a sedentary lifestyle. So how do you know if you’re living a sedentary lifestyle or not?
How To Know You are Living a Sedentary Lifestyle
The signs of a sedentary lifestyle can be both physical and mental and it's important to know them in order to make necessary changes towards healthier life.
Signs you might be living a sedentary lifestyle includes:
Difficulty in Sleeping:
If you don't engage in any physical activity during the day, your body may not feel the need to rest at night. This can lead to difficulty sleeping.
An effective morning exercise with sufficient physical activity throughout the day helps to be able to sleep better at night.
Constant Fatigue:
Do you fight fatigue on a daily basis? Then this is a glaring sign that you aren't engaging in any significant physical activity.
If you find it difficult to sleep at night, then that might be the reason why you always feel fatigued during the day.
However, a sedentary lifestyle is a big contributing factor too.
When active, your body releases endorphins which relieves stress and boosts the mood.
When you are not moving, you are not releasing endorphins, which could lead to fatigue.
Lack of Concentration:
Whoops! Did you forget to pick up your pen when you picked your journal to write? Or did you doze off during a meeting?
Perhaps, you no longer concentrate on tasks as you should?
These are signs that you aren't physically active as you should be.
Inadequate physical activity affects your alertness, attention and motivation.
You Feel Aches and Pains:
If you feel pain in your neck or back region, when sitting or working, then you’re likely physically inactive.
This might seem tricky, because you may think you need to avoid physical activity. However, that “physical activity” is exactly “what you need”.
Consider flexibility exercises like body stretching, overhead arm raises, swimming or biking.
Weight Gain:
In 2020, during “Covid-19 Pandemic", my clothes became tighter, my stomach got bigger and my face became puffier. Wonder why? (Basically, I added more weight).
That's simply because I had nowhere to go. All I did was watch movies, eat at the same spot, and sleep in my room each passing day. I did this for months until the curfew was over.
At first, I didn't notice that my inactive lifestyle was responsible for my weight gain. Not until after a while (let’s save this story for later. winks !).
If you work from home often, without engaging in much physical activity, you may start putting on more weight.
When you live a sedentary lifestyle, you don't burn as many calories as you should, which leads to calorie gain — and increases your weight.
You have Digestion Issues:
Inadequate physical activity causes gastrointestinal problems like constipation.
However, it might also be that you are not drinking enough water.
Your Skin Isn't Healthy:
If you’ve noticed your skin isn't as healthy, it could be because you aren't exercising enough.
Asides being good for your cardiovascular health, physical activity also helps your skin look healthy and vibrant as it promotes effective blood circulation.
Blood carries oxygen and nutrients to cells in the body, including the skin.
Sedentary behaviour can lead to serious health conditions and shorten life expectancy.
Keep reading to find out more, on how a sedentary lifestyle can endanger your health and shorten your lifespan.
A Sedentary Lifestyle Can Shorten Your Lifespan: Here’s How
According to WHO, 60-85% of people in the world lead sedentary lifestyles, making it a serious, yet insufficiently addressed public health problem of our time.
Sedentary lifestyle is among the 10 leading causes of death and disability in the world.
Which contributes to over two million preventable deaths worldwide each year (that's six percent of all deaths).
If you live a sedentary lifestyle, you have a higher chance of being overweight, developing type 2 diabetes or heart disease, and experiencing depression.
A Sedentary Lifestyle: What Problems Does It Cause?
Muscle Degradation and Weakness:
Muscular strength and endurance are important markers of a healthy lifestyle.
However, to achieve this, you have to engage your muscles in daily physical activity.
Because inadequate use of the muscles causes it to weaken with time and then loses its strength.
The parts mostly affected are:
Legs and Glutes (bum muscles):
Sitting for long periods can lead to weakening of the leg and gluteal muscles.
These muscles are important for walking and stabilizing.
when they become weak, you are more prone to injury from falls and strains.
Hips and Back:
Sitting for a long period causes your hip flexor muscles to shorten, which can lead to problems with your hip joints.
It can also cause problems with your back, especially if you consistently sit with poor posture or don’t use a well designed chair or work table.
Neck and Shoulders:
If you spend your time hunched over a working desk or couch, this can lead to pain and stiffness in your neck and shoulders.
Sitting for too long may also cause loss of bone mass, which can substantially raise your risk of injury from even minor falls.
Weight Gain:
If you spend a lot of time sitting or lying, digestion won't be as efficient as it should be. Hence, you’ll retain fats in your body
Even if you exercise but spend a large amount of time sitting, you might still be at risk of health problems.
When you eat, you are meant to engage in a certain amount of physical activity that would make use of the calories you’ve taken in.
Without physical activity, the calories store in the body causing unnecessary weight gain.
Mental Health Problems:
Anxiety and depression are a major example here.
This is because people who spend a lot of time sitting miss the mental benefits of engaging in physical activity.
When you’re physically active, your brain releases serotonin, which is a mood -boosting hormone.
Without physical activity, less serotonin is released, so you may have fewer positive feelings and less motivation.
When you have less motivation, managing your mental health becomes difficult.
Heart Diseases:
People who are inactive for long periods have a higher risk of suffering from various cardiovascular system disorders.
Disorders like:
Stroke
Heart attack
High blood pressure
Cardiomyopathy (affects how your heart pumps blood)
Coronary artery disease (flow of oxygen-rich blood to the heart is reduced) and even death.
Lack of movement is a major contributing factor to these diseases.
Diabetes:
Lying in bed or a couch for more than 8 hours leads to increased insulin resistance in your body. This will cause your blood sugars to increase above normal.
Insulin regulates your body’s blood sugar levels and metabolism, helping your body use sugar for energy.
There isn't a cure for it but physical activity, weight loss and a good diet can help you manage it.
People with diabetes may suffer from kidney damage, nerve damage, vision problems, foot problems due to poor circulation, and chronic skin conditions.
Varicose Veins:
When you don't move enough, your blood flows more slowly, which can result in vein-related problems.
Sitting for too long periods can lead to varicose veins or spider veins ( a smaller version of varicose veins). This is because sitting causes blood to pool in your legs.
Varicose veins aren't usually dangerous, but in rare cases, they can lead to blood clots, which can cause serious problems.
Deep Vein Thrombosis:
Sitting for too long can cause deep vein thrombosis (DVT) such as sitting for hours on a plane or car trip.
A deep vein thrombosis is a blood clot that forms in the veins of your leg.
DVT is a serious problem, because if part of a blood clot in the leg vein breaks off and travels, it can cut off the blood flow to other parts of the body, including your lungs, which can cause a pulmonary embolism. This is a medical emergency that can lead to major complications or even death.
Cancer
Sedentary behaviour may increase the risk of developing endometrial, colon, breast, ovarian and other types of cancers.
Becoming more active and even potentially changing your diet may help you reduce cancer risks.
Excess body weight which often increases with a sedentary lifestyle, explains part of the connection between a sedentary lifestyle and these types of cancer.
Other problems caused by sedentary lifestyle includes:
You may have more inflammation
You may develop a hormonal imbalance.
Your immune system may not function effectively
Your bones may get weaker and lose some mineral content.
How to Stop Living a Sedentary Lifestyle
Living a sedentary lifestyle increases your risk of serious health complications and even death.
However, you can easily avoid this by adopting a few corrective measures.
When you are physically active, your overall energy level and endurance improves.
To stay active is not as hard as you think. There are lots of simple ways to include some physical activity into your day. Which includes:
Be Active Indoor:
Don't allow even cold weather to prevent you from being active (I know how tempting a cold weather can be)
Some ways you can incorporate activities into your day are:
Stand up when talking on the phone.
Use stairs instead of the lift or escalator.
Go for a walk in your neighbourhood for a few minutes.
Get some exercise equipment and work out at home.
Keep moving even while watching TV; stand up once every hour and walk briskly at a pace.
Take a break every 30 minutes or an hour from whatever you are doing on sit, to walk for about 5 minutes.
When you’re tidying up, put items away in small bits rather than taking it all together.
Try standing when doing basic house chores like washing, ironing, or cleaning.
Walk to a nearby grocery shop instead of driving, or if it’s a bit far, get off the bus early before reaching your destination.
Try indoor activities such as dancing, yoga, swimming at an indoor pool, martial arts, cycling. Housework gardening and yard work are also forms of engaging in physical activity.
Be Active at Work:
A lot of people have active jobs and are on their feet all day, but there's also a large percentage stuck behind their desk all day.
But not to worry, you can move around at work more than you think. Here’s how:
Take the stairs instead of the lift or escalator.
Stand up while you read emails and reports.
Set reminders to stand up every 30 minutes when working at a desk.
Take a short walk to where you can have your lunch during lunch break.
If you have a rubbish bin by your desk, move it away from your side, so you have to get up to throw anything away.
“Sit less, move more” is what the American Heart Association (AHA) encourages all of us to do.
In addition to engaging in more physical activity, other lifestyles to reduce sedentary behaviour include:
Managing stress
Getting adequate sleep
Proper supplementation
Maintaining a healthy diet.
All these also contribute to overall health and longevity.
NOTE: Governments and policy makers also have a role to play by creating a supportive environment for the people.
Which include:
Building accessible parks.
Building playgrounds and community centers.
Encouraging physical activity programmes in schools, communities and health services.
Implementing transportation policies that make it safer for people to walk and ride bicycles and so on.
Wrapping Up
If you sit for more than 6 to 8 hours a day, you’re putting yourself at risk.
As your total sitting time increases, so does your risk for health problems.
However, it's never too late to make changes that can improve your health and general well-being.
If you have a health condition, speak to your doctor before you start any new activities. They can help you decide the best activities for you.
If you've tried making some of these changes, but don't feel like you are making progress, reach out for help. Perhaps, a mental health professional, weight loss specialist or doctor.
You can start at a slow pace and improve as time goes on.
Nothing good comes easy, to live a healthy life you have to pay the price. it’s worth it.
Here’s a phrase to keep you going on tempting days: “sit less, move more”
Cheers to healthy living :)