Beware the chair! If you’re one of the 100 million Americans who have desk jobs, you should know, sitting is the new smoking. Sedentary work has been linked to health issues including obesity, chronic pain, type-2 diabetes, heart disease and cancer. While just being seated all day doesn’t seem like it would be so dangerous, according to researchers at the Mayo Clinic, extended periods of sitting kills more people than HIV and is riskier than skydiving. As it turns out, we may be sitting ourselves to death.
If your job keeps you stuck in an office chair all day, you might want to consider the following strategies to keep your muscles active and blood flowing. While you’re at work, park your car as far away from your workplace as you can, take the stairs instead of the elevator, walk to your colleagues office instead of texting or emailing, have standing meetings or use a standing desk, keep a mini rebounder in your office and jump up and down on it for 5 minutes every hour or two. You can also do exercises right from your seat, including side twists, shoulder rolls and wide leg forward bends, making sure that you’re forming a habit by doing these regularly as part of a daily or even an hourly routine.
