Most of us spend a large proportion of our day sitting down with relatively idle muscles. Even though we know that 30 minutes activity at least 5 days a week will go a long way to counteract health concerns, what about the rest of our waking time? In this article, we look at some of the science about what happens to us when we are sitting down for long periods of time and how it impacts not only our physical health but our mental health too.
Doing 30 Minutes Of Exercise Isn’t the Full Fix
Researchers at the University of Missouri in Columbia say what we do during the rest of the day is just as important, perhaps more so, than the time we spend actively exercising. Dr Marc Hamilton is a professor of biomedical sciences and he explains...
“Many activities like talking on the phone or watching a child’s ballgame can be done just as enjoyably upright, and you burn double the number of calories while you’re doing it. We’re pretty stationary when we’re talking on the phone or sitting in a chair at a ballgame, but if you stand, you’re probably going to pace or move around.”
Studies have shown that even if people get their recommended 150 minutes per week of aerobic physical activity, those who spend the rest of their 6,500 waking minutes in a chair may be shortening their lives.
In a study of more than 220,000 Australians age 45 and up, people who sat for more than 11 hours daily had a 40% greater chance of dying within three years than those who sat for less than four hours. While 11 hours might sound like a lot of sitting, we could easily rack 8 hours sitting in front of a mixing console or a computer screen to two. Then add commuting for another hour and then unwinding in front of a TV or computer for a couple of hours in the evening and you are there.
Unhealthy changes in metabolism may be largely to blame for cutting lives short. Research has shown that prolonged sitting is linked to metabolic changes such as higher triglycerides; lower HDL (good) cholesterol; and decreased insulin sensitivity.
In another series of studies that were presented at the Second International Congress on Physical Activity and Public Health in Amsterdam, Marc and his team discussed their research on the impact of inactivity. They studied the effects of sitting in office chairs, using computers, reading, talking on the phone and watching TV. They found evidence that sitting had negative effects on fat and cholesterol metabolism. The researchers also found that physical inactivity throughout the day stimulated disease-promoting processes and that exercising, even for an hour a day, was not sufficient to reverse the effect.
Marc goes on...
“There is a misconception that actively exercising is the only way to make a healthy difference in an otherwise sedentary lifestyle. We have found that standing and other non-exercise activities burn many calories in most adults even if they do not exercise at all. The enzymes in blood vessels of muscles responsible for ‘fat burning’ are shut off within hours of not standing. Standing and moving lightly will re-engage the enzymes, but since people are awake 16 hours a day, it stands to reason that when people sit much of that time they are losing the opportunity for optimal metabolism throughout the day.”
Marc hopes that creative strategies in homes, communities and workplaces can help solve the problem of inactivity. Some common non-exercise physical activities that people can do instead of sitting include performing household chores, shopping, typing while standing and even fidgeting while standing. Given the work of muscles necessary to hold the body’s weight upright, standing can double the metabolic rate. He believes that scientists and the public have underestimated common activities because they are intermittent and do not take as much effort as a heavy workout. Marc continues...
“To hold a body that weighs 170 pounds upright takes a fair amount of energy from muscles. You can appreciate that our legs are big and strong because they must be used all the time. There is a large amount of energy associated with standing every day that can’t be easily compensated for by 30 to 60 minutes at the gym.
The purpose of medical research is to offer effective new strategies for people whom the existing therapies are not working. Because our research reveals that too little exercise and excessive sitting do not change health by the same genes and biological mechanisms, it offers hope for people who either are not seeing results from exercise or can not exercise regularly.
The lifestyle change we are studying is also unlike exercise because it does not require that people squeeze an extra hour into their days and/or get sweaty at the gym, but instead improving the quality of what they already are doing. One misrepresentation is that people tend to say 'I sit all the time, so your studies suggest that I can't even work,' but Ben Franklin and Thomas Jefferson showed us that you can be very productive and still do great work in an office with a 'standing' desk."
In the UK as part of the TV Series Trust Me, I Am A Doctor, Dr John Buckley and his team at the University of Chester, together with Dr Chris van Tullekan got an office full of people to ditch the chairs for at least 3 hours a day for one week. Dr Buckley’s team fitted everyone with a pedometer, heart rate monitor and a blood glucose monitor recording a normal sitting day, and then a day where they are all asked to stand at their desks.
The results are rather spectacular. The week of standing at their desks didn’t make the office workers walk around more, as some had predicted. However, just the act of standing up, raised their heart rates by a tiny amount – which, when averaged over the days, weeks and months led to them burning the equivalent number of calories as if they’d run about 10 marathons in the year.
Turning to the health claims made for standing up, were the results of the blood glucose monitors. These were constantly monitoring the office workers’ blood sugar levels throughout the day. When we eat, our blood sugar goes up. However, if it remains high, it can damage the linings of our blood vessels and increase our risks of heart disease and type 2 diabetes, so our bodies need to clear the sugar as quickly as possible.
The monitors showed that when the office workers were standing up, they cleared the sugar from their blood much more quickly than when they were sitting down – a pattern seen in those with more active lifestyles. What this showed was that very gentle exercise our body gets from standing up helps us get rid of high blood sugar after lunch.
But What About Our Mental Health?
As we have shown, sitting for long periods of time can have a negative impact on our physical health including cardiovascular and metabolic health. But just like the rest of our bodies, our brains depend on good blood flow and ‘food’ to work properly.
Some of the psychological effects of sitting may also be rooted in what people tend to do while in their chairs. You may end up staring at an electronic screen, rather than connecting emotionally with others. You may watch TV, rather than engaging intellectually with others. Or you may try and multitask, flitting between work emails, personal texts, social media, and the internet, rather than honing your attention.
Some recent studies have looked at the emotional fallout of too much sitting…
A study of more than 3,300 government workers in Australia found that those who spent more than six hours of a typical workday sat down were more likely to score in the moderate to high range for psychological distress compared to those who were sat down for less than three hours. Apparently the amount of exercise and leisure time did not have an impact either way.
Another study over 9 years of nearly 9,000 women in their fifties found that those who spent seven hours per day sat down and were physically inactive were three times as likely to have symptoms of depression than individuals who were sat down for less than four hours and got the recommended amount of daily physical activity. The researchers noted that women with depressive symptoms were less likely to increase physical activity over time, described a “vicious circle whereby inactive women are more likely to become depressed and those who are depressed are less likely to increase physical activity.”
Researchers reviewing data from a national wellness project in the UK looked at how much non-work time people spent sitting down to watch TV, use a computer, ride in a vehicle, or socialize. They assessed participants’ mental well-being with a general health questionnaire. They found that, for both sexes, spending lots of non-work time on the computer was associated with lower mental well-being. For women, long hours of TV watching and total hours of sitting down but not working also seemed to have a negative impact.
What Can We Do?
The advice is to stand up for yourself. If you have a desk job, find ways of adding more activity breaks to your day. Consider a standing desk, for example.
Gigantic Post started back in 2006 when Tom Paul partnered with Brian Devine, Tom’s innovation was Inspired by Walter Murch, who spent a year at Gigantic editing a film. As a result, Tom decided to have the dual-operator Avid S6 console disappear into the floor, which also enabled Gigantic to give a colour correction artist an unobstructed view of the screen or alternatively enabling extra seating to be brought in for screenings.
Tom and Brian collaborated with Dennis Darcy, Pawel Szarejko and Jeff DelBello. The team came up with the idea of mounting the two Avid S6s on an Autoquip scissor lift table, which apparently is more likely to be used with motorcycles. The consoles were modified with removable meter displays fitted on rails and can be opened out once the lift is raised, to create a central producer’s desk.
The floor below where the mixer would normally sit, pushes back to provide the standing room and the adjustable lift has the added advantage that can also be adjusted to suit mixers of different heights as you can see in this time-lapse video...
Tom explains...
My main excitement about the room and its innovation is that the floor slides away and reveals a pit. I can dance around. I’m over at the music, then back at the dialog, then diving for the reverb. It brings a whole new element of physicality and body involvement to the mixing, which is energizing.
Conclusion
The research shows that a standing desk can make a huge difference long-term by making small differences just by being stood up.
So the message to all of us is simple and quite achievable – just try doing a little more standing up in your day – whilst at work, on your commute, whilst having lunch or whilst watching TV. It could make a significant difference to your health.
But don’t limit your changes to you your working day, reconsider how you spend your free time: The experts say that it is important to make time for the gym or a regular run. However, the key is not to depend on a daily half-hour, or even a full hour, of exercise to completely cancel out the unhealthy, unhappy effects of 11 hours in a chair. You need to do more.