Reflections on sitting
I write
this blog as I sit in car after about 6 hours of driving. We are travelling
home from a Thanksgiving trip to Sacramento and I am reading a recent LA Times
article, “Don’t just sit there.
Really”
And I am
understanding why I feel like the life is being sucked out of me as I sit—every
hour of sitting cuts about 22 minutes from my lifespan according to the
article. "Sitting is the new
smoking," says Anup Kanodia, a physician and researcher at the Center for
Personalized Health Care at Ohio State University's Wexner Medical Center.
As physical
therapists, we are blessed to have a job where we rarely sit, but we are
constantly battling the ill-effects of sitting in our clients. Tight hip flexors and hamstrings, weakened LE
muscles, weakened respiratory function, deconditioning - the list goes on and
on. What the article brings to light is
that this is not simply a problem with those with chronic disease and immobility,
but the general population, even those who exercise regulary.
The human
body was designed for walking and movement, and we have been doing that
forever. But recently, humans have
shifted their inclinations. In fact, a 2012 study in
the International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity reports
that people spend an average of 64 hours per week sitting, whether or not they
exercised the recommended 150 minutes per week. That's more than 9 hours per day of sitting! Yikes!
What can we
do? Is exercise the answer? Suppose we work out every morning. According to the LA Times article, “Can you safely
sit back and rest on your laurels the rest of the day? Research says no.
Despite the good it does for you in many ways, exercise is not a vaccine
against the ills of sitting”.
One answer
is to change some of those activities that we are doing in sitting and to get
up out of our chairs as much as possible.
Three ideas
I have tried and recommend to clients as much as possible:
- The standing desk: yes it sounds and is really geeky, but I find it not only helps me stay awake, but keeps me productive. I have, for example, a standing desk with a stepper that I use at home. My husband shot this photo while I was working the other day.
Target even
has a treadmill desk now:
- Personal activity monitors: I have also jumped on the bandwagon of the personal activity monitors (as have some of our clients), which via feedback, help to increase the number of steps per day. Examples include the Jawbone Up monitor and the Fitbit www.fitbit.com, https://jawbone.com/up
- Computer break applications: Finally, sometimes you need something to force you to take a break. Luckily, there are apps that do just that, like “Time out” for Mac, which you can set to give you reminders to take a break. https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/time-out-free/id402592703?mt=12
And, yes, all of
this can make a difference, according to the LA Times article. A study
published last year in Diabetes Care showed you could improve your glucose
metabolism with a two-minute walk every 20 minutes. Not too bad!
We know
that exercise is medicine in a lot of neurological diseases; so increasing
overall activity level is high on the priority list. As physical therapists, we have been
espousing the evils of sitting long before it has become popular, but
maybe now that it is in popular culture, maybe more of our clients will listen or ask for ways we can help get them up and moving. As for
me, I am grateful that I don't have long car drives frequently, and I will make sure that my next
post is written from my standing desk.
Keep
moving!
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