The American Cancer Society has a message for Americans: Stand up.
Simply getting out of your office chair of off your couch and standing or taking a quick walk around the office or house can help people live longer, according to a recent study published in the July edition of American Journal of Epidemiology.
The study states: “It’s not just how much physical activity you get, but how much time you spend sitting that can affect your risk of death.”
The study results didn’t surprise Columbus Regional Healthcare System’s wellness program manager Dayton Preston, who said that excessive amounts of sitting contribute to a detrimental cycle of lethargy.
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“The body is made to physically move,” Preston said. “And when we don’t do that, there’s a lot of repercussions. We’ve got a combination of many things that can, bottom line, impact not only length of life, but quality of life.”
He explained that a lack of physical activity deters sleep patterns. When people don’t get a proper night’s sleep, and the mental and physical recovery one gets through sleep, they lack the energy to properly handle stress.
“They’re all going to circle back to each other,” said Preston. “If you’re not sleeping, your energy’s low, you’re not wanting to exercise, you’re wanting to spend more time in the chair.” Which is where the problem starts, according to the study.
Working in an office
This can be especially difficult for people who work in offices, in front of computers, where they are required to sit for over six hours each day.
The study focused on leisure-time sitting, but Preston noted that people who sit for their jobs also have to be careful. He suggests taking flexibility breaks twice a day and getting up to walk around every hour or so to improve circulation, take pressure off the lower back and engage lower body muscles.
But he also warns not to let that stand in for your day’s physical activity.
“The trap a lot of people run into is they substitute that for exercise,” Preston said. “And a good example of that would be the people who say ‘Take the stairs instead of the elevator.’ That’s actually a good thing and you’re going to promote a little more activity, but you can’t say ‘Well, I took the stairs today so I got some physical activity.’ That is not a replacement for exercise.”
And standing all day isn’t necessarily an appropriate option either.
Tim Johnson, M.D., a transitional year resident at Columbus Regional, attempted that for one day and admitted it was “really difficult.” His colleagues asked him if something was wrong when he stood through a meeting and a speaker at a lecture gave him strange looks for standing during a presentation.
“I think society needs to absorb this before it will be very easy to stand the whole time,” he said. “But there are a lot of different things you can do to overcome this.”
Johnson suggests holding a meeting while walking instead of sitting around a conference table, as one way to get some exercise into the work day.
Johnson likes the concept of employees working at treadmill desks, where users can slowly walk while working on computers, but admits that probably isn’t an option for most companies.
Johnson said concerned workers can replace their desk chairs with inflatable exercise balls to encourage use of core muscles.
Chasity Cook, a CB&T employee who spends most of her work day seated thinks an exercise ball or treadmill desk “would probably be more of a distraction” than a useful tool.
Cook makes an effort to walk around the office and walk outside during breaks, and she regularly stands to welcome customers into the bank.
She also doesn’t have much time to sit at home.
“I have two little girls at home, so I’m very active,” she said. “Running around getting ready for the next day, cooking dinner.”
Johnson believes Cook has the right attitude. He said many risks associated with prolonged sitting, and thus an increased death risk, can be combatted by simply standing up more often.
“I think it’s not a one-time thing that you can do, it’s not a magic pill,” he said. “It’s literally every minute making a concerted effort …... it’s changing a behavior, just like quitting smoking or just like reducing your alcohol consumption, eating better foods. Every time you eat, you think ‘Is this good for me?’ Every time you sit you need to think ‘Well, could I be standing?’ ... And that’s a hard thing to do.”
Physically active leisure
Synovus employee Ernie Kelly, 52, doesn’t take too many breaks from sitting during his work day, but uses leisure time to get his heart pumping.
“I walk 3-4 days a week. I walk at least four miles, in the mornings,” Kelly said. “And any meetings I have downtown that are less than a mile, I walk.”
Walking is an easy and inexpensive way to fit physical activity into a busy day, but Preston and Johnson agreed that technology often has an impact on people’s activity level during their leisure time. Instead of going for a walk, people are often checking e-mail, watching TV shows or playing video games.
Additionally, “a lot of modern society is a lot more automated, so factory workers aren’t working as hard ... they’re more in charge of automated robots,” said Johnson. “And you don’t have to wash your dishes anymore, you stick them in the dishwasher.”
He suggests getting a dog, something that presents a bit of an incentive to be physically active — “It’s also more fun to walk your dog than walk by yourself,” Johnson said.
Stress in the workplace can be another roadblock to physical activity.
It’s hard for people to come home after a long day at work and go right into a structured exercise, something Preston sees frequently in the healthcare industry, where so many people work on their feet all day.
But just as people can get stuck in a negative cycle, once they start increasing their physical activity they create a positive cycle.
“So many people turn to exercise for vanity-based reasons, it’s either weight loss or tone up and they’re going for a certain look more than anything,” said Preston. “If everyone can kind of turn their focus to the overall health aspects, the quality of life that they get from physical activity including exercise and not sitting …... we’d see our energy levels increase and be consistent. We’d also see (better) sleep patterns. With all that we see stress levels decrease. We see functional capacity go up, where they’re able to do their daily tasks easier throughout the day.”
It may be tough at first to break through the post-work couch-crash and engage in physical activity, but the more you do it, the more energy you’ll have and the easier it will become.
But that’s not to say watching an hour of your favorite TV show each night will damage your health.
“We don’t need to be up and moving around all the time,” said Preston, “But you start spending three to four hours every night sitting, you’re gonna have some repercussions from that.”
Katie Holland, reporter, can be reached at 706-571-8515
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