12 Side Effects of Sitting All Day

Each person, having worked his daily 8-10 hours, wants only one thing – to fall on the sofa, open a can of beer or soda and forget. The paradox is that at work many of us are sitting motionless, going over papers or staring at the screen, and when we come home, we begin to sit again. It turns out that we are in a sitting position for more than 12 hours – much more than our body wants.

You say: “Man is created to sit – we are so arranged.” But this is completely untrue. Evolution did not expect you to spend most of your time in the chair. She did not even assume that there was such a thing as a chair. She made us for nature, where you have to be in constant motion in order to survive. Therefore, there is nothing strange in the fact that our health is being destroyed every hour spent in a sitting position. Do you think we are exaggerating? Not. Any static position ultimately leads to painful sensations, because the body cannot be primed – it cannot be at rest for a long time. Sitting leads to bone and muscular dystrophy, heart disease, obesity, diabetes mellitus and overall general pain.

If you are not convinced by our words, then we start talking about the facts.

Circulatory problems

Our body is designed to move, not sit. The anatomical structure of this fact fully proves. In our body a huge number of joints, skeletal muscles. Our kind was able to stand up, got elastic skin and a lot of other buns that allow you to move as freely as possible.

Do you remember moments when you had an unpleasant burning sensation or cramps in your calves? This is due to the fact that your blood has accumulated in the veins because of a sedentary lifestyle, man. Do you really have to say why this is bad? Well, let’s say – a stroke.

Muscle wasting

What are the laziest parts of the body while sitting? Buttocks and games, of course. They do nothing, they just force the body to wither away. Fortunately, you can minimize the harm of sitting at your desk. You just need to sometimes get up from a chair or chair to stretch your legs. So you can prevent harmful consequences, although if you don’t want your muscles to completely atrophy, then it’s better to sign up for the hall.

Predisposition to fullness

It would seem that this is understandable, but the point is not even in the absence of physical exertion, but in a special enzyme, which works worse if you stay in one place for hours. This enzyme is called lipoprotein lipase – it is located on the walls of our vessels and is responsible for the breakdown of fats that move through our blood. When you sit for a long time, the processing of fat in the vessels is much slower, which leads to obesity.

And we have not yet begun to say that the rate of burning kilocalories in a sitting position decreases to 1 per minute, which is quite low so that you stop being so fat.

Nerve cells

It may seem to you that it is easy and pleasant to sit, but for your nerve cells the whole process resembles torture, because an unnatural posture provokes pinching of the nerves, which can lead to pain in the whole body. Spasms are inevitable if you sit in one position for a long time. Most often, we feel them in the shoulders, lower back and neck.

You also deprive your body of all evolutionary advantages – blood circulation is disturbed, which is why nerve cells do not receive the necessary amount of energy that they need.

Back problems

They are huge because none of us really can sit properly. Most often, we arch back and shoulders forward. It turns out some unnatural arc of the spine, which leads to wear of the intervertebral discs, degradation of the vertebral ligaments and joints, as well as constant muscle tension, which help us keep the spine in an oblique state. And this is only part of the problem, because when you sit at the table incorrectly (and you always do this), then your chest volume decreases over time, which automatically limits the amount of oxygen that enters the blood. As a result, you feel weak, it becomes harder to breathe, and the brain begins to work worse, because there is less oxygen. And yes, it’s all because of the wrong posture.

In addition, because of this, the risk of developing chronic diseases in the lower back is high. The vertebrae will mix down, strongly press each other, start to crumble. Considering that there is a mass of nerve endings in the back zone, you can end up with a monstrous portion of pain.

But there is good news. If you adjust your position every 15–30 minutes to prevent the lumbar discs from moving, you will feel much better. This should be done several times an hour. You can just walk around the office, make coffee or go outside to get some fresh air. If you are hard at work with discipline, then you can do a little warm-up right at your desk — it’s better than nothing.

Fight with your nature

You are an animal, but do not be offended by this title. It just so happened that all living things are inherently animals. Each creature has an evolution coded message that tells them how to live, how to move, how to behave in danger. The man moved away more than others from this message when he began to play civilization, but even he is still subject to primitive instincts – they are in our blood.

So, nature made it clear to us that our nature is movement, and not sitting behind a computer screen. We are born to move. You feel the need to move, even if you have a weight problem, and you have never played sports. But your body is not exactly you. It wants to move in order to be able to avoid any potential danger at any moment. The primitive instinct does not fit well with the safe space of the modern world in which we live, but it is still the engine that makes us healthier.

Pain that occurs when sitting is not only mechanical damage. It is also the signals that our body gives us, so that we finally begin to appreciate it. Stand up you are finally on your feet. Move around. Be kind to your body and try to sit less.