Sitting Puts Your Body In Neutral and Causes Disease

Inert body watching TV

Did you know that it is recommended that you start your car on a regular basis and at least drive it around the block even if it is not used regularly.  Why?  Because if you don’t, parts may begin to rust, tires may lose air, and it just doesn’t run very well after sitting too long.

Well, our bodies work in much the same way.  There is an old saying that says, “If you don’t use it, you’ll lose it.”  I believe that is true.  Our bodies were meant to keep moving.  Modern humans spend manyhours sitting and often barely moving at all.   At a niche affiliate marketing system workshop last weekend, one of the health practioners was talking about that very thing.  On the way home on the airplane, I read the same thing in a USA Today article.

Scientists have been studying exercise and its effects on the body for quite some time.  In the USA Today article, Dr. Mames Levine from the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota said, “the body’s idling state is very, very unhealthy.  Much like a Ferrari, the human is meant to move.”  One of the parts of the body affected the most is the heart.  According to a report published online in “Circulation,” just sitting for an hour watching TV showed an 18% increase in heart disease deaths in a study of 8,800 Australians who were followed for six years.  Americans watch an average of 4 hours of TV a day.  The more people spend time sitting, the more likely they are to die of heart disease–even if they are not overweight.

Also according to the article, by attaching electrodes to people’s bodies, researchers found that “when people are lounging or sitting, the muscles go silent, like a dead horse…It’s like seeing a flatline for the brain.”  Marc Hamilton, a researcher at the Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge, believes artery-damaging fats get a new chance to build up during every period of prolonged sitting.  “Springing up to job once a day is unlikely to undo the damage.”

How can you begin sitting less?  Here are a few suggestions from Dr. Levine:

• Pace while you talk on the phone.
• Hold walking business meetings and family chats.
• March in place while you watch TV.
• Take breaks from seated work to walk around, climb stairs, or just stand.

“As soon as you stand up, you get healthier, ” Levine says.  Dr Ricardo Lalama, a New York specialist in chronic back and neck pain had told me the exact same information last weekend.

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