At the end of the study, researchers suggest that employees try and keep track of how long they’re sitting for and even offer standing desks for employees or extended breaking periods that allow for time to walk or perform other types of exercise.
Advertisement
The researchers, whose study was published online in the American Journal of Preventative Medicine, acknowledge that more work is in order to identify the exact mechanisms involved. Respondents were divided into three categories, based on their fidgeting activities; thus, they were regarded as low, middle and high fidgeters.
Janet Cade, researcher from the University of Leeds, said, “When sitting for prolonged periods, any movement might be good”.
Previous research has shown that people who sit at a desk for seven or more hours a day are more susceptible to disability, diabetes, heart disease, cancer and obesity. Even after adjusting for poor lifestyle habits such as smoking, women who sat for more than 7 hours a day had a 30% increased rate of mortality.
So now. Ignore what your teachers may have told you, go forth and fidget.
If you are concerned that sitting all day on your bums will eventually kill you – well you are not far off, as long of hours of sitting without any physical activities does have a tremendously adverse effect on your health. Office workers are particularly vulnerable to these issues they spend huge amounts of their day sitting down.
Good news, fidgeters, leg shakers and foot tappers: Your inability to sit still may help you live longer.
Fidgeting, the act of moving one or several parts of the body all the time, have always been considered a nervous habit, evidence of concentration problems, boredom, agitation, anxiety, and sometimes it’s linked with hyperthyroidism.
In other words, those fidgety movements could counteract the nasty health effects of sitting around all day.
Researchers, however, noted that fidgeting is not a solution to replace physical exercise, but it is a solution especially to those of us who are too exhausted or lazy to workout.
And now a new study suggests that fidgeting might actually be healthy for you.
Advertisement
Gareth Hagger-Johnson, Ph.D., of the University of Leeds in the United Kingdom, and colleagues conducted a study involving 14,245 British women aged 35 to 69.
