Take breaks from prolonged sitting every hour to move and stretch.
Note: I do most of my work from my laptop in my home office. When I get into what I’m doing time moves past me without my thinking about it. This is a good reminder for me to take my own advice and take a break every 45 minutes to an hour.
Don’t take this news sitting down: Even people who exercise regularly face higher risks of dementia if they sit for much of the day, a new study suggests.
The study, published online Sept. 12, 2023, by JAMA, analyzed data collected from nearly 50,000 older adults (average age 67, 55% women) who didn’t have a dementia diagnosis at the study’s start. For nearly three years, they wore wrist accelerometers that tracked when they were moving or sedentary during the day. Seven years later, researchers checked the participants’ medical records to determine which of the participants had been diagnosed with dementia.
People who sat for an average of at least 10 hours a day during the activity-tracking phase had an 8% higher risk of later developing dementia compared with those who had sat for fewer hours. And people who’d averaged at least 12 hours a day sitting were 63% likelier to develop dementia than those who’d spent less than 10 hours daily in a chair. Furthermore, exercise didn’t seem to change those odds, since among people who sat for 10 hours or more daily, those who worked out were as prone to dementia as those who exercised very little.
Sitting down all day with no physical activity can increase a person’s risk of developing health conditions, such as heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and some types of cancer. Staying physically active can help to reduce this risk. Sitting all day without adequate physical activity can also impact a person’s sleep quality, mental health, physical and cognitive abilities, and bone health. There is no hard and fast answer to the question of how many hours of sitting is unhealthy. It is different for everyone and can depend on factors such as how much exercise a person does each day.
According to the charity Just Stand, the following thresholds determine a person’s risk of developing health problems due to sitting:
The CDC considers 150 minutesTrusted Source of moderate activity per week adequate to lower the risk of some health conditions associated with a sedentary lifestyle.
If you have a desk job that involves sitting all day or you like to binge-watch TV, Dr.Anthony Pick, MD, of Northwestern Medicine Lake Forest Hospital in Illinois urges you to get up and move regularly. Research suggests that long periods of sitting are harmful for the heart. “There’s that saying that ‘sitting is the new smoking,’” Pick says. Current exercise guidelines recommend 150 minutes of moderately intense exercise a week, or at least 30 minutes of physical activity 5 days a week. Choose physical activities that you enjoy enough to do regularly.
