Follow
Although standing desks reduce sitting time, they are not that helpful
STATES CHRONICLE – As opposed to what happened in the eras before this one, when people used to perform work that was more physical and involved more movement, nowadays, in most lines of work, people perform their job sitting at a desk, in front of a computer.
Although they do sit up and move around from once in a while, they are still spending almost their entire workday sitting down which means they are very sedentary. While there are people, who make sure they balance they time sitting down with exercising, most people just go home and relax on the couch after a long day at work.
Solutions have to be found for this problem as people who are sedentary are also more likely to experience muscle problems, impairment of brain activity or even to develop certain respiratory issues. Moreover, a sedentary lifestyle could increase the risk of obesity, heart disease, diabetes or cancer.
There have been suggested some strategies for reducing sitting time. Among them are standing desks, which imply that the worker does their job standing, or going for short walks during the day. However, according to a new study published in Cochrane Review, these solutions proved to have no actual effect and don’t reduce sitting time overall.
The new study included an analysis of 20 previous studied which had a total of 2,174 participants from both the U.S. and Europe. The findings showed that standing desks reduced sitting time by 30 minutes to 2 hours, but there was little evidence that people actually benefitted from it. On the other hand, taking walks did not reduce sitting down hours at all to begin with.
And these findings are even more discouraging as other studies conducted in 2015 showed that even though we exercise, this doesn’t make up for all the time spent sitting at work. Another study showed that while people are sitting a lot at work, they still sit down even after they finish work.
However, exercising and spending time outdoors might show some improvements in time. It is recommended that you have a daily exercising routine such as running, biking, swimming or dancing. In this way, you might be able to counter the negative impact sitting can have on you.
Image source: www.bing.com
