Hypodynamia: sitting position is unnatural for a person. Modern people sit too much

Can you tell exactly how long you sit during the day? If you do not think about this issue, the problem does not seem global. But as soon as a timer appears next to you, fixing the time spent in a chair, the result will be quite shocking. Many people work outside of production, and most of us spend 8 hours in the office. If we add to this driving a car and idle sitting on the sofa in the evenings, eating or checking the lessons of children, it turns out that we are without active movement the vast majority of hours per day. Even if you introduce an hour-long workout into your usual routine after work, this will not fix the situation. Most of the day modern man so it remains immobile.

Intensive training does not solve the problem

Movement is important and good for our health. But even intense training until the seventh sweat can not balance the situation. The danger from sitting for many hours in a chair is so great that in most cases it causes chronic problems with health. This was reported to the world community in January 2015 by one of the authoritative medical publications. Unfortunately, few moving image life has become the norm for our culture. We are not afraid of the statistics provided by World Organization healthcare: no physical activity among the adult population is the fourth most important risk factor leading to premature death.

What happens to the human body with insufficient activity?

The submitted report notes that sedentary image life causes changes in the human body. Scientists also managed to prove that training twice a week is not able to change the situation. Many of us are used to sitting for most of the day. But for some reason, we do not associate the problem of the sharply increased statistics of cardiovascular diseases with physical inactivity. In addition to heart disease, inactive citizens risk earning density depletion bone tissue, and even cellular mutations that provoke cancerous tumors. It has been proven that if a person sits for 8 to 12 hours a day, he increases the risk of type 2 diabetes by 90 percent. Fortunately, these risks can be offset by getting out of your chair at least every hour. Just a two-minute warm-up will help your blood circulation return to its previous course.

Modern people sit too much

This trend is typical for all developed countries. For example, in the United States of America, the average adult is in a seated position for 60 percent of their waking hours. If you translate these statistics into hours, then on average you get more than 6 hours. The Mayo Clinic recently reported on a study in which they observed people sitting in front of a television or computer. As a result, it turned out that people who spend their leisure time watching movies or chatting in in social networks four hours or more, have a chance of premature death(regardless of the reason) 50 percent more compared to those who sit in front of the monitor for less than two hours a day. Also during the experiment, it turned out that volunteers from a less active group (those who are busy watching TV all night long) increase the risk of cardiovascular disease by more than two times. Note that these results are valid regardless of the number of participants.

Workspace transformation can save the day

If you sit at your workplace, not getting up throughout the working day, and go for a run after work, you will have the same health risks as your colleague who lies on the couch after work. That's why in many progressive companies, the bosses have equipped standing places for their employees. That is why in companies that care about the health of their employees, rest rooms are equipped with exercise equipment. That is why many meetings are held in an informal setting on a walk, rather than at a round table of negotiations. And before you start working out good habit regular warm-ups and breaks, we will tell you about the changes that occur in your body during continuous sitting.

Your muscles are weakening

So, we know that a sedentary lifestyle can be dangerous. But what exactly is this danger? This problem comes down to the anatomical design of our bodies, which were designed by nature to move. That is why a sedentary lifestyle during long period really affects everything internal systems body, and the muscles are the first to suffer. If we consider modern conditions labor, it is worth noting that people tilt their heads to the monitor during work, and this puts an unbearable burden on the neck and lower back. An unnatural position of the body while sitting can also be observed during long telephone conversations.

Spine health and posture

When the body is in a sitting position, the spine is in an extremely uncomfortable position, at right angles to the surface. Supportive lumbar the muscles relax, the entire load goes to the spine. Stress and load on the spine are manifested by pain in the back, neck, shoulders. Over the past 30 years, cases chronic pain in the lower back began to occur three times more often, this is a consequence sedentary image life. Sedentary work and rest in front of the TV destroy posture, causing curvature of the spine, scoliosis, complications of the degenerative-dystrophic process in intervertebral discs, violations of the biomechanics of the spine.

Development of diseases internal organs

The American Journal of Preventive Medicine conducted a series of studies and confirmed a direct link between a sedentary lifestyle and increases blood pressure, the risk of developing diseases of the cardiovascular system and even an increase in the level bad cholesterol in blood. Violation of the functioning of almost all internal organs occurs due to incorrect operation blood flow. A person constantly feels tired, is in a depressed state.

Long stay in a sitting position leads to stagnation venous blood in the area of ​​the pelvic organs, which causes dysfunction of the reproductive system in both women and men.

The appearance of excess weight

The lack of the habit of playing sports and inactivity lead to an increase in body weight, sitting in one place, a person cannot expend much energy. If we consider a typical evening watching TV with eating chips or something sweet, then the threat of getting better is intensified. Two three extra pounds will not bring great harm health, but if you constantly adhere to a sedentary lifestyle, then the danger will become too great to ignore.

Reducing life expectancy

Scientists say that an hour spent on the couch in front of the TV reduces life by 22 minutes, that is, if you watch TV for six hours a day, your life will become shorter by five years. Work week is 40 hours of sitting in one place, if you add to this constant nervous stress life can become shorter by three to seven years. Life is shortened due to pathologies of the spine, the development of atherosclerosis, pathologies of the endocrine and cardiovascular systems, and impaired coordination of the nervous system.

How to deal with a sedentary lifestyle?

No one wants to face the above problems, but what if sitting position is a work necessity? It is necessary to compensate for the lack of activity with physical activity - make a habit of doing exercises in the morning, sign up for Gym or to the pool. During breaks at work, you should not sit, but move, if it is not possible to go outside, then at least walk along the corridors. Try to get up from your workplace every two hours, if possible - do simple exercises learn the technique acupressure, you can do it anywhere - at home, at work and even on the road.

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Health

For many people office work suggests prolonged sitting at the table, sometimes even throughout the day.

Of course, today you can find various ergonomic products that make working in the office more comfortable.

In addition, some companies offer their employees free hours, for example, in gym or swimming pool.

Do not forget about those who work at a distance - a sedentary lifestyle also affects those who work from home.

Yet scientists believe that many of those who often have to sit at the table, already damaged your body, and it will take more than one day to fix these problems.

Here's what Peter T. Katzmarzyk, Ph.D., says:

"Even those people who lead active image life, high risk harm your body. long sitting can't just be compensated by physical activity."

Sitting position

It is hard to imagine that such an action as sitting can be so harmful to our health.

In fact, prolonged sitting can have many adverse effects.

Why sitting is bad

Here is a list of 12 side effects long stay in a sitting position:

1. Slow metabolism

Prolonged inactivity reduces the rate at which fat is burned, which slows blood flow, and reduces the effectiveness of insulin.

2. Wrong posture

Staying in a sitting position puts pressure on the lumbar intervertebral discs.

In this position, the head is tilted forward, forcing the shoulders to compensate for the weight transfer.

3. Injuries of the back and spine

A long sitting position creates constant pressure on lower part back, including muscles and ligaments.

4. Decreased social skills

In addition, sitting at a computer for a long time means less going out to Fresh air, but the disadvantage sunlight leads to a lack of vitamin D. According to scientists, a lack of this vitamin significantly increases the risk of developing diabetes or cancer.

6. Metabolic syndrome

Long sitting leads to an increase in the mass of visceral fat, tissues become immune to insulin. This in turn leads to hormonal and clinical disorders and eventually to the development of cardiovascular disease.

7. Chronic pain

Improper seating at the table for a long time leads to increased pressure on the lower back. Pain that eventually occurs can become a symptom of chronic diseases.

8 Obesity

Due to the fact that during sedentary work, the main muscle groups of a person work less, calories are burned more slowly. Over time, this can lead to overweight or even obesity.

9. Diabetes

Lack of mobility reduces the body's ability to maintain normal level blood sugar, which reduces insulin sensitivity.

10 Cancer

Reduced activity increases the chances of developing cancer. According to one study, sedentary work is bad for women, contributing to development of breast, uterine and ovarian cancer.

11. Heart failure

Long sitting at the table, behind the wheel and / or in front of the TV just as much harms men. According to a study, a sedentary lifestyle can lead to the development of diseases of the cardiovascular system, and sometimes to lethal outcome. The risk of developing such diseases, according to scientists, increases by 64%.

12. Lethal outcome

After several studies, scientists have found that a long sedentary lifestyle increases the risk of overall mortality among men and women by 6.9%

The total lethality is the ratio of the number of people who died from any diseases and/or injuries to the number of those who had this disease, expressed as a percentage, over a certain period of time.

Simply put, if you have health problems, then a sedentary lifestyle can make those problems worse.

Useful tips for those who can't avoid a sedentary lifestyle

These tips come from James A. Levine, MD, Mayo Clinic, one of the largest private medical centers peace.

Periodically move/move in your chair

Get up when talking on the phone or having a snack

Use a desk (standing table)

Take regular breaks while you work

To talk with colleagues, do not arrange conferences, but walk with them a little; Simply put, during the conversation, wind circles.

It turns out that in order to neutralize the consequences of hypodynamia, it is not necessary to spend money on a fitness club. But first things first.

Unnatural posture

According to statistics, people who spend most of the day in a sitting position most often complain about the following problems: excess weight(in particular, big belly), osteochondrosis of the lumbar and cervical spine, sciatica, constipation, varicose veins veins and hemorrhoids. Men are also warned specific problems with the prostate.

Doctors explain this by the fact that the sitting position for a person, in general, is unnatural. Long centuries of evolution have adapted us to either lie down or go-run, well, in last resort stand! When we sit, the spine and muscles cannot properly hold the body, and the organs (intestines, internal genital organs, lungs, etc.) are squeezed and therefore suffer. That's why old saying that it is better to walk than to stand, and it is better to lie down than to sit, has its own historical confirmation.

Even sport is not a panacea

Nevertheless, until now, it seemed to all of us that no one had yet died from sitting at a desk. And almost all people have diseases after 40 years, and this seems to be already in the order of things.

American doctors were the first to sound the alarm. They even began to demand changes in the recommendations of the Ministry of Health. Because it turns out that prolonged sitting leads to the fact that hemorrhoids turn into colon cancer, and excess weight - into diabetes and strokes. According to doctors from the American Cancer Society, even sports loads cannot reduce the harm from long-term sitting. They believe that you can run for an hour every morning or every evening, but if you spend the remaining 6-8 hours glued to a chair, then such loads will not at all reduce the risk of disease and will not prolong life.

Who's longer?

More recently, scientists at University College London have stated that seated long time people do not just feel bad, but age on average 10 years faster than their mobile peers. They figured it out exactly by examining 2,400 pairs of twins and measuring their telomere lengths (these are the end segments of chromosomes). By the way, for the discovery of telomeres, scientists were awarded Nobel Prize. Twins were studied because each person from a pair has the same genetic material as a fellow. So, studies have shown that those twins who moved a lot had longer telomeres, and their genetic copies, which were sitting more and more, had shorter chromosome tips. And now about what it means.

Let's remember school biology: chromosomes are special structures located in the nucleus of each cell. They contain hereditary information in the form of DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid, which looks something like a rope ladder twisted into a spiral). DNA is made up of many sections, each of which is a gene. Initially, the basis of the chromosome is one DNA, but as it develops, it doubles and thus gradually develops from a single cell into a whole person.

So, at the ends of chromosomes are telomeres - several pairs of protein structures (nucleotides). When a person grows, DNA reproduces itself, due to this, viable cells divide, and old ones die off - this is how the development and renewal of the body occurs. However, with each cell division, the length of the telomere decreases. The shorter it is, the older the body and the closer to the end life. That is, today the length of the telomere - the most important feature aging.

Get up - get younger

According to modern science, the length of the telomere is reduced by about 21 base pairs per year. However, they are shortened not only due to DNA division, but also due to the fact that DNA is damaged. inflammatory processes, free radicals and others adverse factors. Including the seat.

A study of twins found that those who were on their feet for less than half an hour a day had telomeres 200 base pairs shorter than those who were on the move for 3 hours and 19 minutes. In fact, the more active twin had the same telomeres as a person 9-10 years younger!

The researchers found data that suggested the following. Many sitting people's DNA is more susceptible to DNA damage free radicals and subsequent inflammation. And an active lifestyle helps to cope with this inflammation.

But after all, at the very beginning of our conversation, we already found out that even regular physical exercise will not help prolong the life of those who sit for many hours without a break! What to do?

Stop spreading diseases!

The answer came from the Swedish School of Sports and Health Sciences. Her scientists found that the body begins to sound the alarm only after you sit for 4 hours. After this time, in particular, the work of the genes responsible for the metabolism of glucose and fats in the body fades. Hence weight gain, diabetes and cardiovascular disease! Based on this, the Swedes give recommendations to absolutely everyone, regardless of age and health status:

● Control the amount of time you sit without a break. Try to warm up every 2-3 hours - get up, walk around the office or apartment. Even these fit simple steps like sipping or pulling a book off a shelf. If you are at home, you can feed the dog or bring the cat from the kitchen, make yourself a sandwich, after all.

● Take short walks during your lunch break. When you watch TV at home, get up from time to time and walk around the room (you don't have to take your eyes off the TV screen to do this).

●  Make it a rule not to call children and household members, but to approach them - and vocal cords save and benefit the body.

● Fitness activities, walking and jogging only make sense if ordinary life you will not sit continuously. To spend more than 4-5 hours in a row on the fifth point means to nullify the entire beneficial effect workout.

The advice to get up and go about your business more often, even if you have a sedentary job, is nothing new. However, until now, neither specialists nor the patients themselves have thought that in this way it is possible to activate the work of the genes responsible for metabolism, and thereby stop the aging process. In general, if you want to live longer, lift yourself out of your chair and sofa more often.

It is difficult to disagree with the fact that a sedentary lifestyle is the scourge of the era, because the unchanged position of the body for a long time without interruption and minimizing motor activity may one day lead to serious illness.

British experts compared a sedentary lifestyle with smoking, saying that the damage to health is almost the same, but suffer various systems human body. Several of the most dangerous potential threats to a permanent sedentary lifestyle have been named.

Sitting on a chair leads to pain in the spine

Statistics from British experts show that approximately 32 percent of the UK population spends 10 hours a day in the same sitting position every day (most often due to working at a computer).

About 50 percent of them admitted that they almost never leave the table and even in the office during lunch they often continue to sit on a chair. In addition, almost 78 percent of the participants in the experiment, as it turned out, had complaints of pain localized in lower section spine.

The problem is that the human spine is completely unsuited to sitting for many hours. For him, this is unnatural. Experts compare the human spine with the Latin letter S, believing that in a sitting position it transforms into a C shape.

With this form, the load is distributed incorrectly, the muscles of the back and the press are blocked and therefore cannot normally support the total body weight. In a standing position, there is stress on the hips, ankles and knees. In a sitting position, it shifts differently, "falling" on the spine and pelvis.

Fitness and sports will not help dilute the load

Doctors often advise getting up from a chair at least 1-2 times an hour: many believe that if during the day at least occasionally devote time to exercises and gymnastic exercises, it will be possible to reduce the load on the spine. Unfortunately, it's not that simple. Scientists have found that people who spend most of their time in a sitting position are at risk of reducing their years of life. At the same time, training and additional physical activity may not be enough.

High risk of developing cardiovascular disease

According to British experts, if you sit for more than 4 hours a day, the risk of developing many diseases increases, which very quickly turn into chronic form. To such possible diseases include hypertension, cardiovascular diseases, oncological diseases.

High risk of venous thrombosis

With a constant immobile position of the body, the blood in the veins begins to stagnate, which results in the development of various varicose diseases. One of the most dangerous is considered to be vein thrombosis.

During the standing position, certain muscle groups are involved that are necessary to maintain posture. The uniqueness of these muscle groups is that nervous system a person can use them for loads with a low level of intensity.

Their fibers contain many special enzymes, among which great importance has lipoprotein lipase, which captures fats and cholesterol, helps organize the conversion of fats into energy.

With a constant sitting position, there is a pronounced relaxation of the muscles, while the activity of enzymes is reduced by almost 95 percent. When we are in a standing position, calories are burned almost three times more than when we are sitting on a chair.

Thus, physicians emphasize the undeniable role of muscle contractions that take part in the most important life processes body and affect the breakdown of sugar and fat. Mechanisms stop functioning when we sit.

Increased risk of developing stress

When a person constantly sits, it contributes to an increase in cortisol. If he is experiencing stress at this time, the level of cortisol rises much more. Therefore, many people who prefer a sedentary lifestyle often become patients of psychotherapists. They may experience fatigue, experience despondency for no reason, feel bad in psycho-emotional terms.