The Unexpected Physical Consequences of Modern Technology aka ‘sitting is suicide.’
Don’t get me wrong, technology is great! We live in an era where pretty much whatever we want to know/learn about is right at our finger tips. We have modern modes of travel that allow us to travel great distances in a short amount of time. We have machines that allow us access to vast amounts of information and entertainment like never before in human history.
Humans are designed to move.
We, as human beings, are designed to move. We are designed to move at a low intensity, throughout our day. As hunter gatherers, we survived on our feet. We were nomadic people, traveling long distances, over long periods of time, gathering food and chasing the occasional wild game.
We continued to survive on our feet during the Agricultural revolution, tending crops and raising domesticated animals for food. Even into the Industrial Revolution, we continued to survive on our feet, as we stood in factory assembly lines and used our bodies to help forge this country into prosperity.
It wasn’t until the advent of modern conveniences like TV and automobiles, and later on the personal computer, that the idea of sitting for long periods of time became the norm, instead of the exception.
We now sit, on average, 9.3 hours a day. The average person, in this country, spends only 7.7 hours sleeping! We sit more than we sleep!
Bottom line, is that we weren’t designed to sit for long periods of time. We were designed to move. Movement is life. Sitting is suicide.
The problem is that we have turned sitting into our mode of survival today. Most of us have jobs that require long periods of sitting. We sit in our vehicles, we sit at our desks at work, we sit for long periods of time while watching TV. We sit…a lot.
But at what cost?
-Sitting 6 or more hrs a day makes you 40% more likely to die within 15 yrs than someone who sits < 3 hours a day.
-People with jobs that require them to sit have twice the rate of cardiovascular disease.
Another recent analysis of 18 studies found that those who sat for the longest periods of time were twice as likely to have diabetes or heart disease, compared to those who sat the least. According to lead researcher Thomas Yates, MD:
“Even for people who are otherwise active, sitting for long stretches seems to be an independent risk factor for conditions like diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and kidney disease.”
-80% of people in this country will experience chronic back pain in their lives.