The Dangers of Sitting and Why Sitting is the New Smoking

We all know that smoking is terrible for our health, but there are still a lot of people who smoke everyday. Now we also know that sitting is just as bad for our health, yet we all still sit for long periods of time every day. Just like smoking, there is research showing that prolonged sitting is linked to things like heart disease, diabetes, weight gain, cancer and of course, back pain.

There are three ways to fix prolonged sitting. The first thing we can do is take micro breaks. Microbreaks are short breaks that you take frequently throughout the day. Every half an hour or 45 minutes, set a timer on your cell phone or on your watch to beep and let you know that it's time to get up and take a 30-second break and stretch, move, walk around, and give yourself a break from all that sitting.

The second tip is to have walking meetings. A lot of people have meetings in conference rooms that do not need to be in conference rooms. So, if you have a one-to-one meeting with somebody, we suggest you do that while walking down the hall. If you have a phone call meeting, you can always take your phone with you and pace through the hallway, outside, or even take walk down the sidewalk if you are working from home.

The third tip is to use a standing desk. There are a lot of options for standing desk which give you the option of sitting or standing with just a push of a button. With a standing desk you can sit for a half an hour, and after you are done sitting you can lift your desk right back up and stand for the next hour, which is how we recommend using a standing desk. Alternating between sitting and standing is best.

We know why sitting is so terrible for our health and we know three ways to fix it. First by taking microbreaks throughout the day. Second, by having a walking meeting instead of sitting in a conference room and our third and final tip is to use a standing desk alternating between sitting and standing.