Research has shown that sitting for long periods of time can cause a number of health problems. Obesity and the metabolic syndrome, a group of diseases marked by high blood pressure, high blood sugar, extra body fat around the waist, and high levels of bad cholesterol, are two of them.
When you sit for a long time, blood can start to pool in your legs. Because of this, your veins are under more stress. Doctors call veins that bulge, twist, or stick out “varicose veins.” There may also be spider veins and broken groups of blood vessels close by. Most of the time, they are not dangerous, but they can hurt. If you require treatment, your doctor can advise you on your options.
Deep vein thrombosis, or DVT, is a blood clot that forms in your leg after you have been still for a long time. If the clot gets loose and gets stuck in your lung, it could kill you. Some people don’t have any symptoms, but you can have pain and swelling. Sitting still for a long time should be broken up because of this.
Sitting too much can hurt your heart and make you more likely to get heart disease. One study found that men who watched more than 23 hours of TV each week were 64% more likely to die from heart disease than men who watched only 11 hours. Experts say that a person’s chance of having a heart attack or stroke goes up by 147% if they spend more time sitting.
More than half of us sit for more than six hours a day, but this doesn’t just make our backsides bigger. Sitting has both short-term and long-term effects on your body and health, which means that something that seems harmless could kill you.
When you move, your muscles make things like lipoprotein lipase, which helps your body break down the fats and sugars you eat. Research shows that sitting for most of the day decreases the production of these chemicals and makes you more likely to have a wider behind. Even if you work out, you are more likely to have metabolic syndrome. One study found that men who sat for longer than usual periods of time gained weight in the middle, which is where fat is most dangerously stored.
When you sit for long periods of time, your main leg and gluteal muscles can weaken and waste away. These strong muscles help you keep your balance when you walk. If these muscles aren’t strong, you’re more likely to hurt yourself by falling or straining them while working out.
Deep vein thrombosis (DVT) can happen when you sit for a long time, like on a long flight or road trip. A blood clot that forms in the veins of your leg is called a deep vein thrombosis.
You probably know that sitting around all day is bad for your health. A sports medicine expert at the Mayo Clinic, Edward R. Laskowski, M.D., recommends standing up when you talk on the phone or taking a break from sitting “every 30 minutes” to improve your health in general.
But if you have any of the following warning signs and symptoms of sitting too much, you should take more steps to limit the bad effects. After all, a large study published in 2016 found that just an hour to 75 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise, like walking, can help your body recover and undo some of the bad effects of sitting too much, like a higher risk of heart disease and even dying too soon. Read on to find out The Actual Number of Steps You Should Take Every Day, According to Health Experts, and stop reading if any of these apply to you.
A study of almost 4 million people and 68,936 cancer cases found that spending a lot of time sitting up front raised your risk of colon, endometrial, and maybe even lung cancer by 66%. The study found that sitting increased the risk for every two hours of sitting. This was true even for people who were physically active.
The cost of living a sedentary life is high. It seems strange that the things people like to do to feel better end up making them feel much worse. Most people spend about half of their day sitting. When you stay in the same place for a long time, it hurts your body.
“Sitting for a long time may be bad for the health of your hips and spine.” Your posture could change, which would make your flexor muscles shorter. Your posture may change as a result, which could be bad for the health of your spine. It could put pressure on the discs and speed up the process of degeneration. Dr. Patil says that the results might be very painful.
When we drive, we sit down. We do our work while seated. We lie down while we eat. We watch TV while sitting down. And if you’re anything like me, you feel bad that you’re not standing up when your activity band tells you to every hour.
Research shows that how we stand after eating can affect how well we digest. In 2002, researchers found that after eating, people who slept on their backs ate faster than those who sat in a chair. (Slower digestion is often linked to unpleasant side effects like gas and bloating.) Also, the sitters couldn’t break down carbohydrates as well. There was a greater chance that carbs would sit in the colon and turn into gas, making it harder to digest.
Because getting up and moving around is needed to control proteins, DNA, and other things that make us less likely to get sick, and because many of us sit too much, we are more likely to get 35 serious diseases. Some of the effects of “sittingitis” are as follows:
Even though being overweight makes you more likely to have many of the same problems as sitting too much, the problem with sitting goes beyond concerns about obesity. Yes, spending so much time sitting might make it harder to keep a healthy weight. David A. Alter, M.D., Ph.D., chair of cardiovascular and metabolic research at the UHN-Toronto Rehabilitation Institute, says that when you sit, you burn half as many calories as when you stand or walk slowly.