November 18, 2009

Do you suffer from "sitting disease"?

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I'm not much for reading (or heeding the advice of) women's magazines. But a friend sent me a recent Women's Health article that had me leaping from my chair.

Apparently sitting on your duff and staring at a computer screen all day is detrimental to far more than your spine and waistline. According to medical research cited in Women's Health, on average, Americans spend a staggering 56 hours a week in front of their computer screens, steering wheels, or televisions.

Among the article's more dire warnings, all attributed to various studies and medical experts:

"The less you move, the less blood sugar your body uses; research shows that for every two hours spent on your backside per day, your chance of contracting diabetes goes up by 7 percent. Your risk for heart disease goes up, too, because enzymes that keep blood fats in check are inactive. You're also more prone to depression: With less blood flow, fewer feel-good hormones are circulating to your brain."

And:

"We've become so sedentary that 30 minutes a day at the gym may not do enough to counteract the detrimental effects of eight, nine, or 10 hours of sitting."

And:

"The longer you spend sitting each day, the more likely you are to die an early death -- no matter how fit you are."

The article even goes so far as to affix a name our country's sedentary syndrome: sitting disease.

Short of getting a new job, what can you do to ward off such symptoms?

Stand up from your desk every half hour. Pace, stretch, do some yoga, jump up and down, anything to get the blood flowing.

Walk and talk. Forget about grabbing a conference room. If you need to brainstorm with a colleague, take a walk with them (up and down the hallway if you have to). Likewise, stand or pace while talking on the phone.

Trade in your chair for a stability ball. You'll have to use your muscles more to make sure you don't fall off the blasted thing. (Better yet, get yourself an under-the-desk stationary bike.)

Use a standing workstation. There's no law that says you have to work on your computer sitting down. This Web Worker Daily blog post tells you how to create a makeshift standing desk on the cheap.

Limit TV viewing to two hours a day. Even better, watch while exercising.

Readers, what to do you do to break up long periods of sitting on the job? And don't say, "Walk to the candy machine."

Michelle Goodman is the author of "My So-Called Freelance Life" and "The Anti 9-to-5 Guide." E-mail Michelle at mgoodman@nwjobs.com

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3 Comments

Robert on November 20, 2009 8:54 PM | Reply

Good article thanks, I will pass it on,as for me i do spend about 2 hrs
a day,but some days I have no time for computing.
regards Rob

takastone on November 24, 2009 2:48 PM | Reply

I went from having a pretty busy runaround type job to sitting behind my desk and computering 8 solid hrs a day.......for the last 10 years........in the 1st 6 years I went from 220 lbs ( I'm a pretty big guy ) to 265!! And started feeling like death........
I started wagging my legs back and forth under my desk, in time with the music I had playing , and do it pretty constantly....sometimes real hard.........to get my blood moving and having to breath a little harder.........I'm down to 232 and hope it keeps up.

fishing in warcraft on February 27, 2012 4:52 PM | Reply

I tend not to leave a ton of remarks, however i did some searching and wound up here do you suffer from "sitting disease"? -- career center blog | nwjobs. And I do have a couple of questions for you if you usually do not mind. Is it just me or does it look like a few of the comments appear like written by brain dead visitors? :-P And, if you are posting on additional online sites, I'd like to keep up with everything fresh you have to post. Could you list of every one of all your shared pages like your Facebook page, twitter feed, or linkedin profile?

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