Astonishing Reasons to get off your Butt and Live A Long Healthy Life

Last Updated on Wednesday, 28 September 2011 11:11 Written by Natural Health Team Wednesday, 28 September 2011 11:11

Health Information about Astonishing Reasons to get off your Butt and Live A Long Healthy Life

During an average 16-hour day, most of us spend nine to 10 hours sitting down.

If that doesn’t set off the alarm bells to get you up out of your seat. Then I have something that might. From recently released research I have created a set of reasons that might persuade you.

And! Before you scream at the screen “but I do workout” believe me, it is great that you stick to a workout regime a couple of times a week. And maybe you go for a few social walks and the odd jog in the park too. But have you considered all the time you’re not exercising – all those hours spent sitting in the car, in front of the television and at the computer?

Ok stand-up now (because you’re sitting right!) I have some bad news! There is good evidence all that sitting, even if it is interspersed by regular moderate exercise can be dangerous for your long-term health.

Researchers are now telling us, too literally get off our butts.

The director of the Fitness Institute Australia, Dr Paul Batman, can’t stress enough how big a deal our sedentary lifestyle is.

”It has even been suggested that in the next five years, sitting will surpass smoking as the No. 1 controllable risk factor,” he says.

Traditional research and many sports and fitness advocates have been mainly interested in the physiology of exercise, the basics of form, function and benefits of exercise, or the health payoff of pushing our limits by running, swimming or cycling.

Those fitness benefits are now so well established and irrefutable, the principles allow us to keeping our weight down, lowering our blood pressure, reducing the risk of cancer and preventing dementia, without a doubt regular bouts of exercise are essential for good health.

The now worldwide standard advice you will hear from most health professionals is to do at least 30 minutes of moderate to high-intensity exercise at least 4-5 days a week. Nevertheless, as scary as it seems, it turns out that these workout sessions, while vitally important for health and wellbeing, are far from the complete story.

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”People think that by going to the gym it is a prophylactic against everything and anything,” Batman says. ”To some degree that is true but we have to realise that there is a significant amount of time when we don’t really do enough.”

All this new thinking comes from a brand new field of study that has been tagged ”sedentary physiology”, which takes a more in-depth look at what happens to our bodies when we are sitting or otherwise inactive.  The past belief, experts assumed that when people were inactive – sitting on the couch, watching TV, driving the car or lying in bed – there wasn’t much happening physiologically.

But it turns out that during those prolonged bouts of sitting there is a lot happening. And nearly all of it is disturbing.

For example, in one experiment, adult volunteers were asked to stay in bed for 23½ hours a day for five days. At the end of the experiment, scientists found the volunteers’ cholesterol had risen to significantly high levels and their insulin resistance had gone through the roof, which is a sign of increased risk to type-two diabetes.

There has also been research on sedentary behaviour, which can lead to a loss of bone density.

There is also evidence that sitting too regularly and for too long can increase blood pressure.

I find this one hard to grasp as I’m a long-term meditator but Australian researchers calculated that every hour spent in sedentary activity, lowers average life expectancy by nearly 22 minutes. Non-exercise activity thermogenesis (NEAT) is the name scientists have given the energy expended in incidental physical activity that is not from sleeping, eating or exercising.

”Because of the society we live in, our NEAT has now been reduced. We order our food online and get it delivered or drive to a drive-through takeaway, we go to the car wash and someone washes our car, we have a dishwasher and clothes dryer, we do home entertainment and we’ve reduced the size of our backyards to accommodate a bigger family room so we can do more, internet, chat, social networking and gaming.

This effect is magnified by the fact physical manufacturing work is on the decline due to robotic and computer based manufacturing. Now many of us work in service industries rather than do the physical work of yester-year.

So what can we do to avoid becoming one of these so-called active couch potatoes?

The advice is simple: take every opportunity to keep moving and avoid sitting for prolonged periods.

Walking over to your co-worker’s desk rather than sending an email. (come on we have all done it).
Standing on the train for at least some of your commute
Cycle and ride instead of park and ride
Take the stairs rather than the lift
Keep up the gym and exercise classes as well.
Stand while on the phone – move the phone out of swivel reach and get up to answer
Have regular breaks throughout long meetings.
Move the rubbish bin and printer so you have to get up to use them
Lose the TV remote
Take your neighbour’s dog for a walk.
Learn a new family orientated skill like, bike riding, hiking or Frisbee in the park
Try a new sport with friends or family… ever tried volleyball or soccer
Learn to dance instead of watching on TV

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