Dangers of Prolonged Sitting You Don’t Want to Happen

Many of us have jobs that require sitting at the computer for hours at a time. If you’re like me, then you can get so immersed in your work that you often forget to take breaks. Though it may seem harmless enough, there are dangers from the health risks of prolonged sitting that you don’t want to open yourself up to. Being the case, I wanted to explain why forcing yourself to move every half hour or so is important for balancing those proteins and genes within our systems to keep the body better protected instead of susceptible to a number of health problems.

To illustrate, sitting for hours on end can lead to blood clots. Believe it or not, women have more than double the risk if they sit for more than 40 hours a week at work. In fact, they stand a greater chance of the clot moving to their lungs than others that sat less. The same holds true for subjecting yourself too long flights from sitting in a confined space for hours can cause deep vein thrombosis to set in. This is why hospitals encourage patients to move soon after surgeries instead of remaining immobile in their beds.

Another hazard of prolonged sitting is the health risk of developing weak bones. The reason that this type of problem can happen is because usual movement when standing and walking helps in the replacement of the certain cells in the body’s skeleton. However, this restructuring tends to lose effectiveness with prolonged sitting to result in weaker bones that can lead to eventual osteoporosis.

Diabetes and heart disease is something else that can set in from a slowed metabolism change caused from prolonged sitting. The body has a harder time regulating its insulin for dealing with the influx of glucose in the blood to the cells to the way cholesterol and inflammation are handled.

Prolonged sitting is also notorious and has dangers for causing back and neck pain, not to mention carpal tunnel for too continuous hours of typing. Sitting too long can compress a major disc in the spine that can cause back and neck health conditions.

Though we don’t like to admit it, prolonged sitting is also bad for the figure. The less that you move, the more calories you don’t burn. You gain more weight and a larger booty from the inactive gluteus muscles and tightening of the hip flexors. As dismal as that prospect sounds, you also are at an increased risk of developing colon cancer from the hormonal changes and effects of that weight gain.

Hopefully, this information will help get you to take the health risks of prolonged sitting more seriously. After all, a little knowledge can be all it takes to get you on the right path of wellness.