HEALTH: Sitting is the new smoking! Remedy?

Even if you are a runner, even if you exercise, sitting is the new smoking, you need to know, say the experts.

Now the question is – How could that even be? Decades of scientific research say that exercise does your body good in long-lasting and tremendous ways.  Then how could a simple act of parking tuchus instantly nullify all those health benefits?

But health experts have come out with this that sitting for too long, whether working at a desk or squatting on your couch is very bad for your health. Prolonged sitting is even worse. If you are sitting for over six hours it can create a whole slew of metabolic disorders like obesity and diabetes, cardiovascular ailment, and also premature death. Talking about older adults, some studies say that sedentary behavior may thin out the partial brain which is critical to memory formation.

Now what remains to do going for a solution apart from medicines, is moving your body as much as possible. That is the only antidote, Nevertheless, here too just like with any medicine, an optimal or minimum dose along with frequency is also required to know.

On this puzzling over for several years says Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons in the journal Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise that just five minutes of walking for every half hour of sitting will do the needful.

In another study, they say they found that if you swapped out thirty minutes of sitting against thirty minutes of physical activity, people can slash the risk of death by seventeen percent. This should be light-intensity exercise or around thirty-five percent with moderate-to-vigorous exercise.

They also say condensing physical activity into easy and manageable, bite-sized “snacks” will offer many immediate health benefits.

Talking about the perils of sitting, the experts say that prolonged sitting can lead to muscle atrophy and that could also weaken your lower body muscles.

In practical research, health experts found that five minutes of strolling in every 30 minutes of sitting has the greatest impact on short-term health. They also found even a one-minute walking break in 30 minutes’ sitting also had modest benefits on health.

This even helped get blood pressure down by 4 to 5 millimeters of mercury (the standard measurement for blood pressure) out of all walking break routines. It is astonishing to know what they added –  these walk-breaks have a comparable reduction in the BP to what you would expect if you keep exercising daily for 6 months.

These micro-bursts of physical activities are not less effective than taking a daily multivitamin or some much-needed medicine prescribed by the docs.

These walk breaks are also a great way to mentally keep fit as a mood booster. They literally sprinkle peps to your steps all day. They say this is good for mental health benefits. Compared to sitting throughout the day, just a 5-minute light walk every 30 minutes reduces feelings of tiredness along with improving mood.

Not only this, studies show that regular exercise can ease anxiety and depression. Through that brain releases feel-good endorphins along with natural cannabis. Cannabis is like chemicals that enhance an individual’s state of well-being. The experts say the exercise can also help with cognition reducing the risk for neurocognitive disorders, for example.

Nevertheless, a brisk walk is a positive reinforcement to make you feel good and more productive. Such physical activities are healthy habits that may soften the mild annoyance while getting deeply busy with something.

Good thing, the five-minute break does not require us to involve intensive workouts. This is the simplest activity that help stretch our muscles.

This small painless exercise also affects longevity. It sure is reasonable to infer that our daily walk breaks will down the road, lead to better health along with longevity. Though the focus on walk-break is really on short-term health.

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Be it an exercise or a regular light walking break –  they supplement our main course of exercise just like multivitamins supplements or a healthy diet.

The experts also give another good news, people with chronic conditions like high blood pressure or diabetes may find an even greater benefit out of the walk-breaks. For them, just one minute of walking or any other light physical activity is just equal to five minutes walk break after 30 minutes.