For your own health, get up!

Spending all day sitting is one of the greatest afflictions of the modern world.

Sedentary life is very common nowadays. If we are not at the computer, we are watching TV. If we are not watching TV, we are eating. If we are eating, we are driving. Are you aware of the amount of time you spend sitting? Many long hours, we assure you. This, compulsory, habit has a very serious negative impact for our health. Take a look.

The mind pays the price

One of the latest revelations about people who follow a sedentary lifestyle has to do with your mental well-being, or rather, malaise: it starts with minor ailments related to a slow brain process, due to the low of oxygenation of brain cells, but it may result in depression and even mental and neurological pathologies.

Muscle degeneration

The second law of thermodynamics tells us that everything in the universe is heading towards collapse if nothing is done to prevent it. With muscles, the same happens: if not stimulated and well exercised, it will ultimately degenerate and become increasingly weak.

A backbone full of curves

When we sit, our posture is rarely the best. If we sit at the computer, we bow down to the front in order to be closer to keyboard and screen; if we watch television, maybe we lay in the couch, bent and causing severe damage to the spine. In the long term, this will be noticed and may result in excruciating and acute pain, due to the calcification of the bone disks that compose it.

Development of severe illnesses

Who spends most of the day seated has higher propensity to develop serious diseases such as type 2 diabetes, due to the excess of insulin production in pancreatic cells, and various kinds of diseases of the cardiovascular system, due to clots that derive from the lack of physical activity, and cancer.

High risk of death

A recent study carried along almost nine years by an American university showed that people who are seated more than seven hours a day have over 61 percent of premature death likely than the general population.

What to do?

Every half hour, at least, get up and walk a little. If possible, turn the waist, slowly, or crouch, for example. It is convenient to grant some activity to the body, in order to counteract the posture of the past few hours.