Is sitting as bad as smoking?
Tim Cook made this analogy and it struck a nerve. I'll briefly highlight what is bad and then I'll give you tips to alleviate the toll sitting takes on your body.
•The effects of prolonged sitting on blood flow were examined in a recent small study involving 11 young men published in the journal Experimental Physiology. After six hours of sitting, the vasculature function in one of the leg’s main arteries was reduced by more than 50%, but was restored after 10 minutes of walking, said Jaume Padilla, an assistant professor in the department of nutrition and exercise physiology at the University of Missouri in Columbia and senior author of the study.
•Sitting more than an hour lowers the levels of the enzyme lipoprotein lipase, which causes calories to be sent to fat stores rather than to muscle, Dr. Hedge said.
What can YOU do to counteract the effects of sitting?
**For every half-hour working in an office, people should sit for 20 minutes, stand for eight minutes and then move around and stretch for two minutes.
**The British Journal of Sports Medicine earlier this year published guidelines for sitting from an international panel of experts, including Dr. Hedge. The panel recommends a combined two to four hours of standing and light activity spread throughout the workday. And research from NASA has found that standing up for two minutes 16 times a day while at work is an effective strategy for maintaining bone and muscle density.
**Stand more often, it burns one-half to one calorie more a minute than sitting. In four hours, that represents as many as 240 additional calories burned.
The Price We Pay for Sitting Too Much
http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-price-we-pay-for-sitting-too-much-1443462015