If you’ve been on the Internet or near any media for the past year, it has increasingly been reported that sitting is bad for your health. Reports from the NHS, The Guardian to CNN describe why sitting for long periods is unhealthy and puts one at an increased risk of heart attacks and strokes.
A sedentary lifestyle puts one at risk for all sorts of health problems, but nothing starts to hit hime until you’ve experienced it. Before moving to the UK, I worked from home where I was able to take frequent breaks from sitting at the PC or move from location to location within the house to lessen the effects of working life sedentary.
Eventually my team mates at MediRevu and I decided to move to a standing desk format as a small but potentially life-saving action against sitting for long periods.
This practice however changed at university. My course has some teaching weeks that require being seated for 6+ hours with 2-3 breaks during the period for a 5-day week. I didn’t think much of it until it was a repeated process for 2 months, and my body started feeling like I came off 3 back-to-back Christmas time binges.
Here we are now at Easter break. The standing workplace is back in operation and the process to be more active begins anew without the limitations of mandatory sitting in classes. A sedentary lifestyle really does affect our health. More workplaces and even universities should realise the need for employees and students to have active lifestyles in order to increase health and productivity.
So remember, get up a few more times during the day and take a walk around the office… preferably to a water cooler and not a snack machine.
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