Is strolling sufficient? Science finds the right way to undo well being dangers of sitting all day

A brief stroll each half hour might assist undo the well being harms related to extended intervals of sitting, a brand new examine finds.

Mounting proof has urged that sitting for lengthy intervals of time — an inescapable reality of life for a lot of employees — is hazardous to well being even for individuals who train recurrently.

Within the new examine, volunteers who obtained up and walked for 5 minutes each half hour had decrease blood sugar and blood strain than those that sat repeatedly. The researchers additionally discovered that strolling for one minute each hour helped with blood strain, however not blood sugar, in line with the small examine printed in Drugs & Science in Sports activities & Train.

“If in case you have a job that requires you to take a seat many of the day or have a largely sedentary life-style, that is one technique that would enhance your well being and offset the well being harms from sitting,” mentioned the examine’s lead creator, Keith Diaz, an affiliate professor of behavioral drugs on the Columbia College Vagelos Faculty of Physicians and Surgeons.

It is not clear why sitting for lengthy intervals uninterrupted is dangerous to your well being, however Diaz suspects at the least a part of the reason is that whereas we’re sitting, we aren’t utilizing our leg muscle tissues.

“Muscle mass function vital regulators of blood sugar ranges,” he mentioned. “If we don’t use them, issues don’t work proper.”

In relation to blood strain, transferring round helps enhance circulation, Diaz mentioned. “Whenever you’re sitting, the blood swimming pools within the legs,” he added. “Whenever you recurrently activate the muscle tissues within the legs, it helps restore common blood stream.”

‘Exercise snacks’ each half-hour

To have a look at one of the best ways to battle the deleterious results of sitting, Diaz and his group examined 4 completely different ‘exercise snacks’ in 11 volunteers: one minute of strolling after each half-hour of sitting, one minute after 60 minutes of sitting, 5 minutes after half-hour of sitting and 5 minutes after 60 minutes of sitting . The consequences of every of these methods had been in comparison with these from sitting with no breaks.

Every of the 11 grownup volunteers got here to the researchers’ lab the place they had been seated in an ergonomic chair for eight hours, getting up solely for a loo break and no matter exercise snack they’d been informed to carry out. All 11 ran by means of every of the methods, separately, in addition to an eight-hour interval by which they solely obtained up for toilet breaks.

Blood strain and blood sugar had been measured throughout every section of the examine. The technique that labored greatest was 5 minutes of strolling for each half-hour of sitting. This technique additionally had a dramatic impact on how the volunteers’ our bodies responded to massive meals, producing a 58% discount in blood strain spikes in contrast with sitting all day.

All strolling methods resulted in a major discount of 4 to five blood strain factors, in comparison with sitting all eight hours. Each kind of exercise snack, aside from strolling one minute each hour, additionally led to important decreases in fatigue and enhancements in temper.

The examine proves that strolling helps, Diaz mentioned, though he suspects some managers would possibly frown on employees strolling away from their desks.

“The subsequent large vital step for us is to vary office tradition,” he mentioned.

Methods to take a strolling break at work

“You would possibly stroll to a co-worker’s desk reasonably than sending an electronic mail,” he urged. “In case you’re on the cellphone, you might be strolling. You could possibly deliver a smaller bottle of water to work so you need to hold getting as much as refill it.”

Whereas the methods urged within the new examine aren’t a substitute for normal train, they could assist with the harms of extended sitting, mentioned Dr. Ron Blankstein, a preventive heart specialist at Brigham and Girls’s Hospital and a professor of drugs on the Harvard Medical Faculty.

“We do know there’s a number of hurt in sitting,” he mentioned. “Whenever you do it with out breaks, your blood strain goes up and there are elevations in blood sugar.”

Do standing desks assist?

Whereas standing desks have turn out to be an enormous factor, Diaz doesn’t advocate them.

“The science on standing desks remains to be largely combined,” he added. “And there’s some proof that they might doubtlessly be dangerous to your again and the blood vessels in your legs.”

Blankstein famous that “being in a single place all day, whether or not it’s standing or sitting, isn’t good.”

The findings of the brand new examine make sense, mentioned Dr. Doris Chan, a normal and interventional heart specialist at NYU Langone Well being.

“I’m actually glad this got here out,” she mentioned. “It could possibly be the beginning of one thing revolutionary. We simply want bigger research with extra folks. However this is sort of a seed that’s been planted. It opens doorways to every kind of different analysis.”

Getting up and strolling each half hour might need different advantages, comparable to loosening joints which have stiffened after lengthy intervals of sitting, Chan mentioned.

“I hope that employers examine this examine and take to coronary heart that they need to be permitting their workers to take breaks to stretch and to maneuver,” she mentioned. “It’d even enhance workflow.”