There is growing evidence a sedentary lifestyle is bad for health, even if people are physically active outside work.
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Your parents may have said fidgeting is rude, but it could also be saving your life, according to new research.
If you cannot help sitting down for long, just do not sit still as new research suggest that movements involved in fidgeting may counteract the adverse health impacts of sitting for long periods.
Scientists from the University of Leeds and UCL examined data from the United Kingdom Women’s Cohort Study, which provided details about diet, physical activity, fidgeting and chronic disease for nearly 13,000 women aged between 37 and 78 years. [Gareth Hagger-Johnson et al, Sitting Time, Fidgeting, and All-Cause Mortality in the UK Women’s Cohort Study]. The participants were also kind enough to give insight as to how much they smoked, drank alcohol and how much daily exercise they performed. The women were first approached between 1999 and 2002 and followed up 12 years later. A team of researchers, co-led by the University of Leeds and University College London, says they discovered that people who consider themselves as moderately or very fidgety do not increase their risk of early death from sitting for long periods.
Recent studies have shown that an increasingly sedentary lifestyle dominated by sitting at work and then sitting in leisure time has a negative effect on health.
The person who sits next to you and fidgets all day-annoying, right? The negative effects of sitting for long periods of time have been studied extensively but are still not entirely understood. In conclusion, the researchers believe that sitting time should be viewed as a separate behavior change target to physical activity. “If you can make your TV watching or screen time more active that could be beneficial”, he advises.
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Based on the results, among the low fidgeters, women who sat for at least 7 hours a day had around 30% mortality risk than those who sat for less than 5 hours. A study that was published in the Journal of Preventive Medicine this week has highlighted these exact benefits and we are interested in presenting the hows and the whats to our beloved readers. “Maybe, you know, get a standing desk”. But, that does not mean you go canceling your membership at the gym.
