Do You Have Sitting Disease?

How much time do you sit every day?

Mark Finstad, like many of us,
spends many hours sitting in front of his computer each day.

Maybe you are like me and you sit at a computer most of the day. If you sit several hours a day you are not alone; the average American sits 55 percent of the day. [Source: Vanderbilt University]

Medical experts have come up with a new name for this sedentary lifestyle, and have started referring to it as "sitting disease."

Unfortunately, I have become a victim of the disease, and have experienced increasing neck and shoulder pain that I cannot seem to shake. After doing some research, I learned that what I was experiencing was not uncommon. People like me, who sit at a computer several hours each day, are frequent victims of back, neck, and shoulder pain.

But that's not all. When I started reading up on it, I was surprised to learn that prolonged sitting has many other negative effects on a person's health.

Excessive sitting impacts our metabolism. "Our bodies are breaking down from obesity, high blood pressure, diabetes, cancer, depression and the cascade of health ills and everyday malaise that come from what scientists have named sitting disease.” [James Levine, MD, PhD]

It is not only our metabolism that suffers. Sedentary lifestyles are also believed to increase the risk of cardiovascular disease. “For people who sit most of the day, their risk of heart attack is about the same as smoking.” [Martha Grogan, Cardiologist, Mayo Clinic]

Think about how much time you spend sitting each day. Maybe you work at a computer most of the day. Maybe you commute to work. Maybe you watch television a couple of hours every night. Maybe you like to sit and read.

All that sitting adds up, and the sum total is scary. So what can we do about it? How can we combat the negative effects of so much sitting?

Well, the solution is exquisitely simple. Stand up!

Here are a few ideas I found online at juststand.org:

First day with my new standing desk mount.

• Walk more at work: park your car farther away from your building; use stairs not elevators; take a long route to the restroom or mailroom.
• While computing, set a timer to remind you to stand up and stretch every half hour; take this time to pick-up and clean your work area.
• Stand up when you talk on the phone.
• Don’t send emails if the recipient is near; walk over and talk to him or her.
• When watching TV, lose the remote; get up to change the channels.
• Stand or exercise while you watch TV, or just stand and move around during pesky commercial breaks.
• During intense gaming, stand up in between sessions and screen loads.

When I realized what all the sitting was doing to my health, I made a radical decision and purchased a stand up desk mount. It is completely adjustable, so I can stand for a while or move it down and sit for a while. I am now standing at my computer quite a bit of the day. I have to say the early effects are very positive. I am finding that I have a lot more energy. All that sitting was making me feel lethargic physically, and mentally.

God gave us two legs. It is probably a good idea to use them if we can.