Stop Doing This
And Add More Years to Your Lifespan
It’s a mystery how our forefathers spent hundreds of years alive and still die healthily.
Do they have two heads? Or probably God loves them more?
Enter an hospital ward today, more than half are either diabetic, hypertensive, cancer patients or other idiopathic disease conditions.
Let’s think about this for a second🤔, I bet you would agree with me that the fault is unintentionally from us.
That's because our generation lives more of a “sedentary lifestyle.”
Sedentary lifestyle is a serious, yet insufficiently addressed public health problem of our time.
Anyways, does it sound familiar?
The Unknown Killer…
Do you work from home and you love sitting on your sofa all day long? Or perhaps, you spend your entire day in an office chair? That’s simply a sedentary lifestyle.
It’s an inactive lifestyle with a lot of sitting and lying down with very little or no physical activity.
If you spend over six hours on a spot everyday, you have a 20% increased risk of mortality compared to those who sit for less than three hours per day.
Unfortunately, many people aren't aware of the dangers involved.
The Signs…
Sedentary lifestyle can manifest both physically and mentally, you might be living a sedentary lifestyle if you often experience:
Difficulty in sleeping, constant fatigue, lack of concentration, pain in your neck and back region, weight gain, digestion issues or your skin isn't healthy.
This lifestyle has a link with health issues like heart diseases, obesity, type 2 diabetes and depression, all these shorten life expectancy.
The Problem Is…
If you live a sedentary lifestyle, you have a higher chance of developing muscle weakness, because inadequate use of the muscles causes it to lose its strength.
Weight gain is another major effect of being physically inactive, 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.
Therefore, lying in bed or a couch for more than 8 hours leads to weight gain and increased insulin resistance. This causes your blood sugar level to increase above normal (diabetes).
People with diabetes may further suffer from kidney damage, nerve damage, vision problems, foot problems due to poor circulation, and chronic skin conditions.
Also, obesity ushers in cardiovascular diseases like stroke, high blood pressure and coronary artery disease.
How about your mental health?
Without physical activity, less serotonin is released, so you may have fewer positive feelings and less motivation (depression).
It may also increase the risk of developing endometrial, ovarian and other types of cancers.
Even if you exercise but spend a large amount of time sitting, you are still at risk of these health problems.
You Can Stop It…
Being active is not as hard as you think, all you need to do is incorporate engaging activities in your daily to do list.
Like:
Use the stairs instead of the lift or escalator.
Go for a walk in your neighborhood for a few minutes.
Get some exercise equipment and work out at home.
Take a break every 30 minutes from whatever you are doing on sit, to walk for about 5 minutes.
Try standing when doing basic house chores like washing, ironing, or cleaning.
Are you stuck behind an office desk all day?
Set reminders to stand up every 30 minutes.
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.
Wrapping Up
As your total sitting time increases, so does your risk for health problems.
It's never too late to make changes, 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.
Now, it’s cold over here (you know how tempting cold weather can be) but I refuse to get stuck in bed😉.
Remember “sit less, move more.”
Cheers to healthy living :)