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Sitting All Day: Worse For You Than You Might Think

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Re: Sitting All Day: Worse For You Than You Might Think

#71

Post by abas »

maxxxxx wrote: post #12
lpolovets wrote: post #5

I am not going to disagree with the article or dispute that sitting all day is not as healthy as occasionally moving around, but does anyone else feel like this is the latest "health scare" meme? It reminds me of how leg embolisms on long flights were the focus of attention a few years ago. (i.e. completely absent from the news at first, then an overabundance of stories once a single scientific study is published.)

It's definitely a real issue. I have been working at a desk since my 20s. Now in my 40s my legs go numb after sitting for a half an hour. The problem goes away when I am on vacation for a few weeks. I bet a lot of health issues would go away if people could spend less time sitting.

How is your mattress?

I started having a similar experience this year and also started feeling better while on vacation. When I returned home and it immediately got worse again I realized my mattress was part of the problem (the symptoms were often the worst in the morning, though they persisted all day). It was not a terrible mattress, but over the years had gotten a little saggy in the middle. I bought a new mattress and while, the problem hasn't completely gone away, it has gotten a lot better.

Re: Sitting All Day: Worse For You Than You Might Think

#72

Post by Estragon »

forgottenpaswrd wrote: post #30

Am I the only one in hacker news that does not sit down at all at work? We are bipeds designed for standing on our two foot and moving from a while. I have lifeguards friends that talked to me about the change in the body shape they have seen over the years, especially women as the spend more and more time sit down in front of the computer. So I decided to change, it took months to get used to it as all musculature h…

I stand while I work. It's good for concentration.

Re: Sitting All Day: Worse For You Than You Might Think

#73

Post by samtp »

proponentia wrote: post #22

Explanationless science always gets into difficulties. That said, I suspect that watching TV all day everyday would kill a person, eventually, because thinking without a break depletes the CNS of resources which would otherwise be used to regulate the body. (Note: TV watching is a kind of externally driven thinking. More draining than thinking about the show would be the guilt thoughts caused by watching TV all day g…

You should know that Dr. Blair is basically the world expert in healthy habits and physical activity. He is cited in medical journals over 2000 times every year. This is not explanationless science, but science backed by 20 years of rigorous research.

Re: Sitting All Day: Worse For You Than You Might Think

#74

Post by kragen »

ck2 wrote: post #13

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2450170 Between this sitting-is-death and the sugar-is-death, there should be tens of millions of dead office workers who died before 60 in the past few decades.

http://www.ssa.gov/oact/STATS/table4c6.html says 12% of all people in the US would die before the age of 60 at current age-group death rates. Currently about 2.4 million people die in the US per year http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/deaths.htm, so probably about 50 million have died over the last three decades. All developed countries together are about triple the population of the US, so 150 million total deaths. Let's say half of these were white-collar workers, or 75 million.

If early death is independent of white-collar status, then you'd expect about 10 million dead office workers who died before 60 in the past few decades, even if sitting and sugar have no effects on death risk.

Re: Sitting All Day: Worse For You Than You Might Think

#75

Post by shpxnvz »

singular wrote: post #66
singular wrote: post #60

I don't mean to sound facetious, but aren't we designed to also sit as well as stand/walk/run? That's what the buttocks have evolved for, after all:- "Physiologically, the buttocks enable weight to be taken off the feet while sitting" [1] Of course, having said that, we probably weren't designed for the amount of sitting a typical officer worker does, and certainly weren't designed for being sedentary. [1]: http://en…

Well, not surprising that was down-voted, but seriously - if somebody contends that we're 'not designed for X', yet we have actually evolved to be able to do X, I think it's reasonable to point that out, even if the fact is that we do too much sitting down.

While it may in fact be true that we evolved to able to sit, the sentence you quoted is in no way evidence of it. A link to supporting evidence, or even a well reasoned argument, would go along way towards backing up your claim.

Re: Sitting All Day: Worse For You Than You Might Think

#76

Post by georgieporgie »

keeptrying wrote: post #64
hugh3 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lots of folks stand up all day for work. They tend to complain about their feet hurting. We're obviously designed for some kind of sitting. Our bodies bend very comfortably that way. If you walk uphill for ten miles, your body really wants to sit down on the nearest log or rock to take a rest (though how this was supposed to be comfortable back when we used to be naked is a mystery to me). I have no doubt that our an…

Don't wear shoes. Walk around barefoot as much as possible - it will fix your back, knee and feet issues. Hard to do in corporate America but possible

I've been using a standing desk for about a month now. I tend to move in place quite a bit, shuffling my feet around, hooking a foot or thigh over a stool, and shifting weight between my legs.

The two things I've noticed are significant tightening in my lower back and discomfort leading to pain in my heels. If I stand barefoot for much of the day, the heel pain can be so bad that there's a sort of burning sensation as I lay in bed at night.

Wearing comfortable, supportive shoes has greatly reduced the heel pain. You could counter that I simply need to spend more time on my feet to condition myself, but as I saw no improvement in the pain over the course of weeks, I'll be disinclined to believe you. :-)

Re: Sitting All Day: Worse For You Than You Might Think

#77

Post by georgieporgie »

city41 wrote: post #53
jaysonelliot wrote: post #35

I'm lucky, I have a shelf in my office that happens to be perfect standing height for me. I decided to put my laptop on the shelf when I came in this morning, and give it a try. My office: http://yfrog.com/h7m5ajhyj So far today, I've gotten far more done than a normal Monday morning, and my energy level is way up. This could be good.

I'm two weeks into my standing desk experiment. If you stick with it, you're in for some discomfort. My legs adjusted quickly, the bottoms of my feet are still toughening up. The problem is my current standing desk only allows standing. I'm 100% committed to standing if I am working. That's fine 95% of the time, but there is that 5% (like after I've worked out for the day or already put in 10+ hours of standing but f…

How about a standing desk with a taller chair for the times when you need to rest your lower half?

Re: Sitting All Day: Worse For You Than You Might Think

#78

Post by joe_the_user »

forgottenpaswrd wrote: post #30

Am I the only one in hacker news that does not sit down at all at work? We are bipeds designed for standing on our two foot and moving from a while. I have lifeguards friends that talked to me about the change in the body shape they have seen over the years, especially women as the spend more and more time sit down in front of the computer. So I decided to change, it took months to get used to it as all musculature h…

About two weeks ago, I started standing 100% of the time while working.

I'm at the computer maybe 9-10+ hours/day. So this has been essentially a complete change in my habits of physical movement/rest.

I do martial arts and some body work regularly, so I started out in what I considered to be good physical shape but it definitely has been ... challenging.

I think I'm getting closer to adjusted currently. When I began, there were times when my legs felt something like lead.

Re: Sitting All Day: Worse For You Than You Might Think

#79

Post by orofino »

bsgreenb wrote: post #39
postfuturist wrote: post #33

This sort of 'science writing' is infuriating: "Specifically, he found that men who reported more than 23 hours a week of sedentary activity had a 64 percent greater risk of dying from heart disease than those who reported less than 11 hours a week of sedentary activity. And many of these men routinely exercised." Well, is he controlling for those who exercise or not? If not, then what is the point?

Even controlling for exercize wouldn't save this study.. Genetic and environmental factors will correlate with a sit-down lifestyle, confounding any possible conclusions. You could rule out genetic and family environment factors by comparing identical twins who have different sitting habits. My bet is that a big chunk, if not all, of the effect here could be explained by that. For the remaining "effect", you'd still…

Couldn't the same be said of most medical findings? Should we verify all findings utilizing fully controlled testing on twins?

Re: Sitting All Day: Worse For You Than You Might Think

#80

Post by joe_the_user »

hugh3 wrote: post #56
[deleted] wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[deleted]

Lots of folks stand up all day for work. They tend to complain about their feet hurting. We're obviously designed for some kind of sitting. Our bodies bend very comfortably that way. If you walk uphill for ten miles, your body really wants to sit down on the nearest log or rock to take a rest (though how this was supposed to be comfortable back when we used to be naked is a mystery to me). I have no doubt that our an…

Mind you, our backs and feet suck for pretty much everything.

I tend to think that apparent effect comes from habitual misuse of the body.

It's possible that millions of years of mammalian evolution could have just screwed-up and puked-out some creature that was mal-adapted everywhere but somehow took-over the earth. But I suspect that what's happening is that human are pretty adapted to many activities but we are so darn flexible to we put themselves in situations even beyond our adaptability.

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