Fitness Tip of the Week
April 2012
Don't Take This News Sitting Down: Your Desk is Killing You
By Andrew Rice
Everyone knows that it's better to spend your free time getting up and exercising rather than sitting on the couch watching old Gilligan's Island reruns. But if you look at the actual time most of us spend sitting down, couch potato time is only a small part of the problem. What's really hurting us is the 8 hours every day spent sitting down at work.
The bad news is that sitting too much can actually kill you, much quicker than if you don't. The American Cancer Society tracked the health of 123,000 Americans for over 10 years. Men who spent 6 hours or more per day sitting had an overall death rate that was about 20 percent higher than the men who sat for 3 hours or less. The death rate for women who sat for more than 6 hours a day was about 40 percent higher.
According to statistics compiled by the US Bureau of Labor, in 1960 more than half of American jobs required at least a moderate amount of physical activity in order to perform their duties. In the last five decades, that number has fallen precipitously, to the point where now only 1 in 5 jobs require a moderate amount of physical exertion.
Coinciding with that change, the number of calories burned during work time by American men and women dropped by 142 per day, on average. That equates to every man and woman in America eating a Hostess® Twinkie® at work, every single day.
According to research at the Mayo Clinic, entropy takes hold when you spend too much time sedentary. Your body rebels and begins to do bad things to you—specifically, not only do you begin to get fat but your body also begins to store that fat around your middle, which is correlated with heart disease. In addition to giving you a big spare tire, sitting too much is linked to increased risks of cancer, Type 2 diabetes, and a host of other bad things, including hemorrhoids.
And let's not even mention back pain, which is the thing that drove San Francisco Marketing Executive Alex Salkever to switch from a sitting desk to a standing desk several years ago. According to Salkever, the change was immediate and dramatic.
"I began standing up in my office almost two years ago when we moved and there was a chest-level work bench in my office," said Salkever, "I thought, rather than buy a desk, I'd try standing. And I found it made my back feel better. I could concentrate for longer periods and felt less sleepy. I can work while sitting, now, but not for extended periods and I really prefer the standing desks. In fact, I convinced two coworkers to do the same and they both said it was a dramatic improvement."
If you're handy with tools it's easy to make your own standing workstation. Otherwise, there are dozens of good commercial options ranging from $200 to more than $1,000. Others have found that sitting on a large balance ball instead of an office chair allows them to be at a regular desk while allowing their body to remain engaged and dynamic rather than slumped in a chair. Thanks to programs like P90X2® and Chalene Johnson's Get on the Ball!, most Beachbody® readers have at least one balance ball bouncing around the house. I don't use mine all the time but it's a great change sometimes. Because my body must actively balance on the ball, it continuously uses the hundreds of muscles that consist of the core. And my nervous energy gets absorbed by a natural bouncing. While researchers who studied the benefits of using a balance ball this way say it shouldn't be considered exercise on its own, it can definitely help add variety to your office ergonomics.
You can buy souped-up versions of the balance ball chair with a weighted base, casters, and in some versions, resistance bands to allow exercise right at your desk. In my opinion, they seem like overkill, especially the casters (and the price), but your mileage may vary.
I'm not suggesting that you should haul your fancy desk and office chair to the dump tomorrow. But don't accept sitting down all day as an inevitable consequence of modern life. While my career requires that I spend more time than I wish at a computer, I mix up my position a lot, the working stiff version of Muscle Confusion™. Sometimes I sit at my regular desk, which has a full keyboard, monitor stand, and what an ergonomics expert would describe as a good position. Much of the time I sit with my laptop on a hard wood bench that requires good posture but is surprisingly comfortable for long periods. And, finally, when I'm restless, I throw in the balance ball just for good measure. I also make it a point to stand and walk around when making phone calls, which cuts my sitting time probably in half.
