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Why sitting is bad for you - Murat Dalkilinç

BeginnerAmerican accentAnimated lesson5 min

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Transcript: 46 sentences

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  1. 0:07 Right now, you're probably sitting down to watch this video and staying seated for a few minutes to view it is probably okay.
  2. 0:15 But the longer you stay put, the more agitated your body becomes.
  3. 0:19 It sits there counting down the moments until you stand up again and take it for a walk.
  4. 0:25 That may sound ridiculous.
  5. 0:27 Our bodies love to sit, right?
  6. 0:29 Not really.
  7. 0:30 Sure, sitting for brief periods can help us recover from stress or recuperate from exercise.
  8. 0:37 But nowadays, our lifestyles make us sit much more than we move around, and our bodies simply aren't built for such a sedentary existence.
  9. 0:46 In fact, just the opposite is true.
  10. 0:49 The human body is built to move, and you can see evidence of that in the way it's structured.
  11. 0:55 Inside us are over 360 joints, and about 700 skeletal muscles that enable easy, fluid motion.
  12. 1:03 The body's unique physical structure gives us the ability to stand up straight against the pull of gravity.
  13. 1:10 Our blood depends on us moving around to be able to circulate properly.
  14. 1:14 Our nerve cells benefit from movement, and our skin is elastic, meaning it molds to our motions.
  15. 1:21 So if every inch of the body is ready and waiting for you to move, what happens when you just don't?
  16. 1:29 Let's start with the backbone of the problem, literally.
  17. 1:32 Your spine is a long structure made of bones and the cartilage discs that sit between them.
  18. 1:38 Joints, muscles and ligaments that are attached to the bones hold it all together.
  19. 1:43 A common way of sitting is with a curved back and slumped shoulders, a position that puts uneven pressure on your spine.
  20. 1:51 Over time, this causes wear and tear in your spinal discs, overworks certain ligaments and joints, and puts strain on muscles that stretch
  21. 2:01 to accommodate your back's curved position.
  22. 2:04 This hunched shape also shrinks your chest cavity while you sit, meaning your lungs have less space to expand into when you breath.
  23. 2:13 That's a problem because it temporarily limits the amount of oxygen that fills your lungs and filters into your blood.
  24. 2:21 Around the skeleton are the muscles, nerves, arteries and veins that form the body's soft tissue layers.
  25. 2:29 The very act of sitting squashes, pressurizes and compresses, and these more delicate tissues really feel the brunt.
  26. 2:37 Have you ever experienced numbness and swelling in your limbs when you sit?
  27. 2:41 In areas that are the most compressed, your nerves, arteries and veins can become blocked, which limits nerve signaling, causing the numbness,
  28. 2:50 and reduces blood flow in your limbs, causing them to swell.
  29. 2:55 Sitting for long periods also temporarily deactivates lipoprotein lipase, a special enzyme in the walls of blood capillaries that breaks down fats in the blood,
  30. 3:07 so when you sit, you're not burning fat nearly as well as when you move around.
  31. 3:13 What effect does all of this stasis have on the brain?
  32. 3:16 Most of the time, you probably sit down to use your brain, but ironically, lengthy periods of sitting actually run counter to this goal.
  33. 3:25 Being stationary reduces blood flow and the amount of oxygen entering your blood stream through your lungs.
  34. 3:31 Your brain requires both of those things to remain alert, so your concentration levels will most likely dip as your brain activity slows.
  35. 3:41 Unfortunately, the ill effects of being seated don't only exist in the short term.
  36. 3:46 Recent studies have found that sitting for long periods is linked with some types of cancers and heart disease and can contribute to diabetes, kidney and liver problems.
  37. 3:57 In fact, researchers have worked out that, worldwide, inactivity causes about 9% of premature deaths a year.
  38. 4:06 That's over 5 million people.
  39. 4:09 So what seems like such a harmless habit actually has the power to change our health.
  40. 4:14 But luckily, the solutions to this mounting threat are simple and intuitive.
  41. 4:20 When you have no choice but to sit, try switching the slouch for a straighter spine, and when you don't have to be bound to your seat, aim to move around much more,
  42. 4:30 perhaps by setting a reminder to yourself to get up every half hour.
  43. 4:36 But mostly, just appreciate that bodies are built for motion, not for stillness.
  44. 4:41 In fact, since the video's almost over, why not stand up and stretch right now?
  45. 4:46 Treat your body to a walk.
  46. 4:48 It'll thank you later.

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