Is sitting the new smoking?
‘Sitting is the new smoking’ - this phrase keeps doing the rounds and let’s be honest, much of our lives can be spent sitting - at our desks for most of the day, then on the sofa at the end of a long day, driving in our cars or commuting on the tube / train, sitting down at the dinner table to eat throughout the day. That’s a lot of hours!
Often we are completely unaware of the amount we’re sitting down, and our lives are set up to encourage us to do it most of the time. By nature we are creatures of comfort and convenience - why? Because ultimately, we’re wired to conserve energy as a deep rooted survival mechanism. Helpful back in the day, when we were hunter gatherers, not knowing when our next meal would be or where it was coming from!
But now, it means if we’re eating energy fuelled foods (often too much of it, too frequently) our body has a surplus of energy coming in and if we’re not active enough, we’re not expending much of it. This is a recipe for the body to store this excess energy as fat (in case we need it for a ‘rainy day’, from an evolutionary point of view). Added to this, we’re sitting too much, and sitting in the Western way on a chair, means often hunched over over a desk, not using our core and also stuck in rigid postural patterns or set movements (backwards and forwards), which go from sitting to standing. Unless we practice dynamic movements, these environments, can create restrictions in our anatomy, muscular conditioning and even breathing (which impacts our nervous system!)
How can we break from these patterns? Here are some tips:
Participate in a regular dynamic movement practice - yoga i.e. vinyasa, yin
Diaphragmatic breathing - open up the capacity of the lungs, engage the diaphragm, oxygenate the blood and engage the parasympathetic nervous system
Dance! Yes, get the ‘bod’ moving. Put on your favourite playlist and boogie like no one is watching. Shake those hips, rotate those shoulders, shimmy and bop
Qigong - gentle movements, which stretch and strengthen the body
Whatever you do, have fun with it and remember - keep moving and most importantly, keep it varied :)