14 DAY TRIAL // People sit down a lot nowadays, and it's usually comfortable, especially if the chair or couch is puffy and soft, but spending most of our times in that position is not really a good idea.
Obesity and lower back pains are two of the main conditions that can arise from excessive sitting, which is a problem for people whose work demands it.
There isn't much they can do really, except get up and walk more often than not.
For those who do have a choice though, standing desks are the way to go. The video embedded below is a testimony made by a gamer.
He starts by talking about the benefits of standing while using the computer or working, and then shows a PC presentation of why sitting is not the way to go.
Lower back pains stem from gravity exerting pressure on body parts that weren't built for it.
Obesity has multiple underlying causes. For one, electrical activity in the legs shuts off when we sit down. Secondly, calorie burning is reduced to a measly 1 per minute.
Third, and most important of all in this case, is that the quantity of enzymes that help break down fat is reduced by 90%.
It doesn't help that good cholesterol drops too (20%) and that insulin effectiveness is reduced by 24% too. That's right, risk of diabetes rises if we sit more than we stand. On average, we are said to sit 9.3 hours a day, which is more than half our waking life if we take 8 hours as the average sleeping time.
Since we're on the subject, we may as well mention that so much time wasted by not standing on our feet increases the risk of dying within 15 years (even from more than 6 hours a day in fact).
All in all, exercise helps people with a predominantly sedentary lifestyle, but it doesn't offset the disadvantage, not really. If we must spend our whole lives in front of a monitor, buying a standing desk, and maybe a bar stool for when we need to rest our feet for a few minutes, actually may be a good idea.
