The Sit Secret: Is Sitting Killing You? Your Chiropractor's Guide To Healthy Sitting

YOU MIGHT AS WELL START SMOKING, REALLY? Walk into any office in America and you’ll hear the furious patter of computer keys and chatter between co-workers sitting in cubicles. You live in a sedentary culture, and studies show that all your sitting and inactivity is taking a toll on your health. Dr. James Levine is the director of the Mayo-Clinic Arizona State University Obesity Solutions Initiative and has studied the adverse effects of sitting for years. He sums up his findings in two sentences: “We are sitting ourselves to death. Sitting is more dangerous than smoking, kills more people than HIV, and is more treacherous than parachuting.” Dr. Levine is the one who coined the term—“Sitting is the new smoking”—and he’s not the only one who believes it. According to a 13-year study by the American Cancer Society, Americans who sit for six or more hours a day versus three or fewer hours have a dramatically greater risk of dying prematurely from a preventable illness like heart disease, diabetes, or cancer. They also found that a man who sits more than six hours a day has an 18 percent increased risk of dying from heart disease and a 7.8 percent increased chance of dying from diabetes compared with someone who sits for three hours or less a per day. Further, in a 12-year study of more than 17,000 Canadians, researchers found that the more time people spent sitting, the earlier they died—regardless of age, body weight, or how much they exercised. If that’s not enough to make you concerned, consider this: a 2013 survey of nearly 30,000 women found that those who sat nine or more hours a day were more likely to be depressed than those who sat fewer than six hours a day, discovering that prolonged sitting reduces circulation, causing fewer feel-good hormones to reach your brain. So, if you understand the importance of the caution that sitting is the new smoking, you know that sitting is bad for your health—even if you get a lot of exercise. The bottom line is this: quit sitting so much. But if and when you do, do it differently. We’ll get to that in a minute...