Did you hear this slogan already? Think about it: we get up in the morning from our beds, step into our cars or the train, we sit at work, sit during lunch, on the commute back home, and drop on to the couch debating with ourselves wether we should get up to go to the gym or to step on the mat and decide no to, since ‘we had such a rough day’. Is that what we were designed for in the first place? Not at all!
Last year the New York Times wrote: “the more hours that people spend sitting, the more likely they are to develop diabetes, heart disease and other conditions, and potentially to die prematurely — even if they exercise regularly.”
When you sit all day, your telomeres (the caps on the ends of your DNA strands, comparable to the plastic tips of your shoe laces) get shorter. This is a natural proces which causes us to age. But the thing here is that this process goes much faster when we spend our time sitting down!
So how can do good to our body’s?
How about these 10 tips (some things are obvious, but I’m sure you can think of more options yourself too ;):
- Create your own standing desk by putting your laptop/PC higher up on a table or something similar
- Set a timer that helps to remind you every now and then to get up and move around, do some yoga or simply take a short walk.
- Eat standing or take a lunch-walk
- Have standing meetings (makes the meetings much faster and more effective too, win-win!)
- Walk around when making a phonecall (and use your headset when doing so to avoid excess radiation)
- Drink more water (from a glass to avoind BPA’s), it makes you walk to the toilet more (another win-win!)
- Walk over to your colleague when you have a question (cuts down the endless mail conversations + social interaction makes you happier too)
- Obvious one: use the stairs more often
- Make your spine straighter on the times you have no other choice but to sit or use a therapy ball to sit on.
- Been reading this post while seated? Get up and move that body! 😉
