Do you know for a healthy body there are more than ample things out there to work on but a basic thing as sitting for too long can affect our body? Walking, sitting, sleeping, running, working out anything that we do is in a balanced proportion and if any one of these is over or under done affects our body. So the real question is Can be sitting too much cause health problems? Let’s find out.
Sadly our answer is YES. Anything done in access is prone to have bad consequences and so does sitting for hours. It’s been stated that sitting for long hours leads to chronic health problems and mental health problems. Now, what exactly is a chronic health problem?
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How Too Much Sitting Affects Your Body?
According to the World Health Organisation, chronic diseases are not passed from person to person. They are of long duration and generally slow progression. So that means it is a health issue that is recurring and long-lasting.
Now, What does sitting too much do to your body? Let’s have a look at that.
A human body is typically built to stand and move around, our organs placed in such order that standing and moving around working is easier while sitting too much will actually affect our body. For example,
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The position of our heart is directly proportional to our working body position, if we are sitting too much it will have an adverse effect on our body. It will slow down the flow of blood in our vessels allowing the formation of fatty acids in the blood vessel which can lead to heart diseases and eventually also affect the burning out of from your body since you aren’t moving, there is no fat burning which can lead to obesity because sitting for too long drops down your production of Lipoprotein lipase, which makes it difficult for the fat to get burn so instead of getting burned it gets stored in the body.
Sitting too much not only affects our organs working it also affects our muscles.
The key to a healthy body is to make it healthy and that includes working out your body but what if you have to sit for long hours what will happen to your body then?
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Well, the answer is quite alarming, it has a degrading effect on your muscles it will loosen up the firmness of the muscle making them weak, and since muscles are important for basic functioning our body muscles who are not in perfect or good condition will hardly do any good, you will lose the strength to do most of the work, feel weak and laborious work will eventually put a strain on the muscle harming them causing injury, it will also lead to stiffening of your neck and shoulder causing pain which can be recurring and can last for a long time if proper treatment not taken.
The most affected areas will be your back and hips, it will shorten your hip flexor muscle (which is the key muscle responsible for lower body movement and lets you kick, move, bend, swivel the hips, etc. the back also gets affected, sitting in a wrong or very poor posture will definitely cause back problem-related to the spinal cord causing having back pain, increase in stress and can add the harmful amount of pressure to the spinal disc and back muscles.
Another area that is affected due to sitting too much is your bones, it leads to weakening of your bones causing pain, bone spurs, inflammation, and many such problems which will degrade your body.
Do you know that even the brain is also affected due to sitting for too long?
It is seen in the studies that sitting too much can have a very negative impact on your brain though there is no hardcore proof it seen that sitting for long hours lead to conditions such as depression, anxiety, and lessen glucose control ( which can be fixed with some light exercises).
The blood flow that goes up to the brain also slows down which leads to the slow production of oxygen that your brain receives.
The brain-derived neurotrophic factor ( which is the gene that is responsible for providing instructions in order of making a protein found in the brain and spinal cord, is responsible for promoting the neurons by helping in the growth and differentiation plus the well-being of these cells.) decreases it leads to stress which can be extreme in most cases too.
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Other health problems we can see due to sitting for long hours are diabetes, DVT, and even breast cancers in women and sometimes even leading to bowel dysfunction. The increase in insulin level due to sitting increases the chance to have diabetes. DVT, also known as deep vein thrombosis, is a blood clot that forms in the veins of your leg.
Sitting for long hours causes a number of health problems and even leads to early death. So now that we’ve seen that sitting for long hours causes so many health problems, what exactly can we do to avoid getting wrapped up in any of these health problems and have a healthy body for the long run? We have some ways that can help you from getting any of these health problems.
What Actions You Must Take to Avoid these Health Problems?
Your answer to many health problems is limited to easy and good ways to ensure your good health.
Yoga: Gives Flexibility
It is seen that performing yoga boosts our metabolism and keeps our body active and healthy. Waking up early and doing yoga for even an hour can help us escape many health problems mentioned earlier in the article.
Yoga is found to be beneficial in helping ease out the underlying recurring pains, so sitting for long hours might be your obligation due to work but performing yoga will help you overcome the health problems.
Walk in Breaks
Even if your job requires you to sit for long hours you might need to add a little twist for your own health’s sake. Avoid sitting for long and take a few minutes to walk a little to get those legs moving. You can even do your work while standing for some time or stretch a little to ease out the tensed muscle and let them relax simply just by breaking this long sitting hours chain you can ensure your good health.
Exercise
Make sure to do some light exercises like stretching or simple neck exercises to ease out the tension. Doing neck exercises can reduce tension, increase your flexibility, and can prevent any injuries that may occur.
Correct Posture
The main key to avoiding these problems is to have your sitting posture correct. Just by having a correct posture you can have many benefits and avoid many problems. By having a correct posture you have better breathing, back relief there are no or reduced headaches, you have optimal digestion, and a good mood to work.
So now that we’ve gone through the major points and know about what exactly can happen if we sit for long hours and what we can do to avoid these problems. We can lead a good and healthy life knowing our pros and cons.
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