Sitting is one of the best ways to rest and relax, however, many people spend much of the day in this position, especially during working hours or at home watching TV.
The human body is designed to move frequently, so spending more than 6 hours a day sitting can damage your health over time.
- Some of the most common problems include ease of weight gain.
- Diabetes and even cardiovascular disease.
- Such as high blood pressure or heart failure.
Some of the changes that occur in the body when you feel more than 6 hours a day include:
From the first moment you sit, the electrical activity of the muscles decreases markedly, as the body enters a mode of relaxation in which the muscles are underused.
This decrease in activity, in addition to weakening muscles, hinders blood flow to the brain, decreasing the amount of healthy hormones that reach brain cells, contributing to cases of severe fatigue, sadness and depression.
Once muscles are underused, metabolism slows down, burning just 1 calorie per minute, increasing the ease of gaining weight, especially when sitting and eating.
In addition, with the reduction of metabolism, there is a decrease in faeces, resulting in constipation and excessive gas production.
Sitting for more than 3 hours, the arteries no longer dilate and, as a result, blood has more difficulty circulating throughout the body. Because of this effect, the heart needs to use more strength to pump blood and therefore over time, cardiovascular problems such as high blood pressure or heart failure, for example, may occur.
Lack of exercise reduces the production of lipase, an enzyme that can remove excess bad cholesterol from the blood, as well as other fat cells, thus increasing the amount of cholesterol and also the risk of heart attack or stroke.
Due to increased fat cells, weight gain is also common, which can lead to obesity.
People who sit for a long time experience a decrease in the ability of insulin to collect glucose, so the risk of developing diabetes is much higher.
To avoid all this damage, people who work long hours are advised to sit several times a day, preferably every hour, to stimulate blood circulation and do muscle stretching exercises. Discover some exercises to do at work and improve your quality of life.
In addition, a good advice for those who work in offices and spend more than 3 hours sitting is to go to drink water or go to the bathroom every 2 hours, to stimulate blood circulation, other good advice is to change elevators by stairs, eat healthy meals and leave the work environment at lunchtime, taking advantage of this period to “disconnect” from work , also having free time, which also improves productivity.