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Sitting down too much is doing more harm to your body than you can imagine

elth.co

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Re: Sitting down too much is doing more harm to your body than you can imagine

#141

Post by stinos »

mholub wrote: post #55
alansammarone wrote: post #5

Every time I read an article like this, I get a bad feeling and I say to myself "I'll definitely exercise more - I don't wanna be all buggy when I get older due to my lifestyle - I'll do this NOW!". Then a couple of hours later, I'm back coding happily seated. I'm sure this is the case for many of us. I wish our brains could keep this bad, guilty-like feeling that makes us take action around for longer.

You just need to find activity interesting for you I used to do sedentary lifestyle most of my life until I found rock climbing 2 years ago I go rock climbing to a gym 2-3 times a week now. I go there because I WANT not because I have to. This did tremendous job to my health and overall fitness. And this is sustainable in the long term because I don't have problems with motivation. So my advice — find your sport, any…

I'm also mad for climbing and yes 2-3 times a weeks does wonders for overall feeling, fitness and strength. It's also a very complete exercise unlike many other sports. But the claim here is doing that at the end of your day still isn't sufficient in dealing with sitting for hours in row. Which I anecdotelly can relate to: I feel way better overall when not spending hours a day sitting. And when I go climbing after a 'standard' working day involving multiple consecutive hours of sitting I'll top at about 4 routes in a certain grade. However when I'm taking a week off to do some light construction works in my house and I go climbing after such a day, when I've been sitting for max 1 hour or so, and even if I already did a considerable amount of physical labour, I'll do 8 routes in that same grade. At first I thought it was a coincidence (like the routes in that grade just being easier or me just accidentally being better for some reason or...) but it happened time and time again in the last couple of years. I'm not 100% sure the not sitting is really the cause, but it is striking.

Re: Sitting down too much is doing more harm to your body than you can imagine

#142

Post by Noumenon72 »

hacker_9 wrote: post #7

To add to this - we have a cardiovascular system that is kept moving by our heart pumping. We also have a lymph node system, which is moved around by us walking around (no pump). So if you are completely sedentary this can become blocked up and result in all sorts of problems (random lumps, infections etc)

I've also heard this theory linking movement to joint health:

> Joints get the bulk of their nutrition from range of motion. The vast majority of joints in the body are synovial: two bones surrounded by a leathery capsule filled with fluid. The cartilage surfaces receive very little blood flow. In order to receive nutrition, the joint must “lubricate” itself with the fluid of the joint, absorbing nutrients from the fluid along its surface – via regular, full range of motion.

> When joints stop moving through their full range, elements of cartilage do not get this nutrition. The cartilage dries up. And it is replaced with bone. This, by definition is osteoarthritis. Preceding that, is pain. --http://www.irunfar.com/2012/10/is-your-plantar-fasciitis-pla...

Re: Sitting down too much is doing more harm to your body than you can imagine

#143

Post by rahulchowdhury »

nlh wrote: post #131

Side note: the entire site ( http://elth.co ) appears to be a single-person operation (a side project even — “I am currently put up in the lovely city of Bangalore in India, working for a startup as an Android Engineer.”) Kudos to the creator (OP). Looks to be a very well-done (if click-baity, but hey, that’s how you....well....kind of...get clicks these days) project, and it comes across very much like many of the l…

Hi there,

First of all, thanks for going through the mission statement and appreciating what I'm doing with this project.

Having worked in a startup for over 2 years now, there's one thing that I have noticed.

Most people like their butts glued to their chair and keeping activity to a minimum.

I mean like for traveling even 1KM they tend to get a cab.

I tried getting some guys to the gym with me or to eat healthy.

Some tried. Some didn't. Most of them didn't stick to their healthy habits for long.

What I was doing was cheerleading them to health. That's not the push they required.

They needed to know what's wrong with their current habits. Why they should be improving their habits. How to do it.

That is when this project was born.

I wanted to hand out claims that are backed by science in a lucid manner. Also, what I think most blogs do is just say stuff and end the article.

I want my readers to take away actionable tips after completing the article. They should be knowing what to do right after reading each article.

That's my main aim with this project. Educate, inspire, and influence people towards a better life. To help them decide what's good for them.

I launched the site yesterday. Planning to do 1-2 solid articles each week.

Thanks again for your kind words. I'm more thrilled to work on this project after reading this comment.

Made my day.

Watch out for more articles on the blog.

Cheers!

Rahul

Re: Sitting down too much is doing more harm to your body than you can imagine

#144

Post by rahulchowdhury »

Antrikshy wrote: post #139
nlh wrote: post #131

Side note: the entire site ( http://elth.co ) appears to be a single-person operation (a side project even — “I am currently put up in the lovely city of Bangalore in India, working for a startup as an Android Engineer.”) Kudos to the creator (OP). Looks to be a very well-done (if click-baity, but hey, that’s how you....well....kind of...get clicks these days) project, and it comes across very much like many of the l…

That makes it even more impressive. My first thought when I saw the article was "this is a well designed website". I love the typography!

Glad to know that you liked the design. I've been working on this for some time now.

I'll keep polishing it.

Re: Sitting down too much is doing more harm to your body than you can imagine

#145

Post by stcredzero »

aswanson wrote: post #68
shadowmint wrote: post #53

> When you need to ask a colleague something, walk up to his/her desk instead of dropping a message 'Did you get that email I sent you?' Ahhhhhh~ No. Please don't. There's plenty of good advice on this article, but be careful that the things that you do for yourself don't negatively impact other people ; that's not be healthy, its being thoughtless and selfish.

It never ceases to amaze me how much others think they entitled to your time while working. They'll start conversations when all nonverbal signals show you are trying to get something done. Im at the point where I am going to be forced to be outright rude, which is not easy for me, just to be able to work undisturbed.

Im at the point where I am going to be forced to be outright rude

Our society is at a point where there are large numbers of people who think their feelings trump larger concerns, like those of the workplace, their job, driver/pedestrian safety, and the rule of law. There is a set of ideas that involves executive function, the delay of gratification, the adherence to ideals, and subsuming the petty ego. It's called being an adult.

If you think your feelings trump such concerns, take a good, hard look at yourself. Are you a narcissist? Do you really subscribe to an objective reality in your actions?

If you are hiring people, look for people who are the opposite to the above.

Re: Sitting down too much is doing more harm to your body than you can imagine

#146

Post by ben_jones »

aswanson wrote: post #68
shadowmint wrote: post #53

> When you need to ask a colleague something, walk up to his/her desk instead of dropping a message 'Did you get that email I sent you?' Ahhhhhh~ No. Please don't. There's plenty of good advice on this article, but be careful that the things that you do for yourself don't negatively impact other people ; that's not be healthy, its being thoughtless and selfish.

It never ceases to amaze me how much others think they entitled to your time while working. They'll start conversations when all nonverbal signals show you are trying to get something done. Im at the point where I am going to be forced to be outright rude, which is not easy for me, just to be able to work undisturbed.

Honestly I think you're part of the problem. It sounds like you are being pushed to a brink where you feel the need to be rude. The situation should've been addressed before you felt yourself at the brink.

Do you have a manager you can sit down with for ten minutes and explain this dynamic to? It's possible your colleagues don't fully understand the implications of their actions and would happily oblige you if they only knew.

Of course I don't know your situation, and given how dysfunctional some office environments are if may be possible that your options are truly limited. In my experience though there usually are options before brinkmanship.

Re: Sitting down too much is doing more harm to your body than you can imagine

#147

Post by eighthnate »

shadowmint wrote: post #53

> When you need to ask a colleague something, walk up to his/her desk instead of dropping a message 'Did you get that email I sent you?' Ahhhhhh~ No. Please don't. There's plenty of good advice on this article, but be careful that the things that you do for yourself don't negatively impact other people ; that's not be healthy, its being thoughtless and selfish.

> When you need to ask a colleague something, walk up to his/her desk instead of dropping a message

Dev1: "Hey, your last commit's message was only 'fixed bugs'. Which bugs did you fix"?

Dev2: "Sure. But I'm working on something right now. Shoot me an email about this and I'll send you the bug list by the end of the day."

There is a reason why we have email/messaging. Many times, it just works better. There are things that are better asked in person, there are things that are better asked in an email.

Re: Sitting down too much is doing more harm to your body than you can imagine

#148

Post by rdiddly »

shadowmint wrote: post #53

> When you need to ask a colleague something, walk up to his/her desk instead of dropping a message 'Did you get that email I sent you?' Ahhhhhh~ No. Please don't. There's plenty of good advice on this article, but be careful that the things that you do for yourself don't negatively impact other people ; that's not be healthy, its being thoughtless and selfish.

When someone asks if I got their email, the answer is often "Probably." (i.e. I'm not going to check that shit for another couple hours yet, if I can help it, but yeah I'm pretty sure it's safe to assume the email system functions correctly)

Re: Sitting down too much is doing more harm to your body than you can imagine

#149

Post by eighthnate »

Just curious. Wouldn't evolution eventually take care of this? For most people, sitting down too much would be harmful. But due to mutations/genetic variance, there would be people who are relatively unaffected by prolonged sedentary life. Over time, wouldn't their genetics take over?

Re: Sitting down too much is doing more harm to your body than you can imagine

#150

Post by rahulchowdhury »

JoshMnem wrote: post #127

This program is useful for remembering to stand up regularly: http://www.workrave.org/ I get up and do stretches and exercises every time it tells me to take a break. I set it for every 11 minutes, but it seems like the breaks are further apart than that. There were noticeable improvements within a week.

Thanks for the tip. :-)
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