Health Benefits Of Standing More…
This one simple change to your lifestyle could help you lose weight, half your chances of heart disease, decrease your chances of getting cancer, reduce symptoms of arthritis, and help you be healthier in many other ways…
What is it?
Modern life keeps progressively moving us further away from how we are naturally supposed to live. Advances in medical care and cleanliness help us stay healthier, but other aspects harm our health. If we can take the best of both worlds, then we can be REALLY healthy.
Here is one habit that modern life encourages, which detriments our health. It is – sitting down…
In these modern times most people spend a big portion of their day sitting down. Too much. They sit down at home watching TV, sit down at work, and sit down whilst driving from one place to another. We hardly ever need to stand up if we don’t want to. We don’t even need to stand up to switch on the TV any more. Research has consistently shown that sitting down for too long is not a healthy way to live. In fact it is very damaging.
Research On Sitting Down
As far back as the 1950’s research on sitting down shows the health benefits of standing more. A study comparing bus drivers to conductors showed that the conductors who stood for most of the day had a 50% lower risk of developing heart disease than the bus drivers who sat down.
Research has also shown that standing up burns around 50 calories more per hour than sitting down. The cumulative effects of this is great for weight loss. Just one hour per day standing would burn about 1500 more calories per month. Four hours per day would be around 6000 extra calories per month burned. That’s around two extra pounds of fat burnt.
Standing more can also help ease symptoms of arthritis, reduce blood pressure, and decrease our chances of developing diabetes. This is serious stuff.
What can I do?
The obvious answer is to stand more if you spend most of your day sat down. If you work at a desk, then make sure you stand up for a minute or two every half hour. Although this won’t help you burn many more calories, it will at least help get your blood flowing around your body, and reduce aches associated with sitting down for long periods of time.
Better still, persuade your employer to get you an adjustable workstation. This is where you can raise or lower the height of your desk so that you can alternate between standing and sitting whilst you work. This can make a MASSIVE difference to your health and well-being. You can then spend some of your day stood up whilst working.
There’s a great selection of height adjustable desks available at Amazon. They are well worth checking out here – HEIGHT ADJUSTABLE DESKS
If you can’t get an adjustable desk then a good tactic is to take all your phone calls stood up. This helps you be more energetic during the call, and it gives you a trigger to stand up regularly.
Give yourself plenty of excuses to stand up throughout the day. Perhaps you can take on some additional roles that require more standing up, such as stock taking. I even used to volunteer to go out and buy the dinners so that I could stretch my legs and get some fresh air.
We are not designed to be sat down all day. Find as many ways as you can to keep yourself moving.
Being sat down all day is not natural, and our bodies are not designed for this.
Final thoughts
More research is confirming the massive health benefits of standing more. It is only a matter of time before employers will be obliged to provide the option of standing work stations for their employees. They would be smart to do this now in order to avoid the potential of law suits in the future.
It’s possible that people with certain illnesses will start suing their employers if they were made to sit for long periods of time for many years. This happened when workers were made to breath in certain fumes for years. Forward them this article – it might just help persuade them to make provisions for you!
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