Unfortunately, our lifestyle has become a sitting lifestyle and with this a big set of problems arises. There are many negative effects on our health that stem from this. People in today’s society move a lot less than people of previous generations and this is one of the main reasons why many people are fat, sick and have bad postures. If the only thing you do all day is sit and do absolutely no movement, you will most likely get fat. Even if you don’t get fat, the fact that you spend your entire day hunched over in front of the computer or the television, will result in bad posture. Bad posture then will precipitate all kinds of other problems, for example chronic back pain or mobility problems. Once you get these problems, more and more will keep on piling up and you will end up feeling more and more pain and also look worse. That’s why it is important that you sit less and stand and walk around more.
Old Habit: Sitting all the time and everywhere
I have the bad habit of always trying to sit down everywhere. Whenever I am somewhere (for example when I get on the metro or other places), I always look for a place to sit down. Even if I have been sitting down all day, I still feel naturally tired when I get up. My legs hurt and my mind automatically wants to sit down. It’s both a physical and mental problem. For example, I was on the metro the other day. When I entered the metro train, there were no places to sit, so I had to stay standing up. Automatically my legs started hurting and I was mentally scanning for places to sit. Many people do this without even realizing it. They do it automatically. Without even thinking, they just try to sit all the time.
New Habit: Try to stand or walk around whenever you can
So I was in the metro, standing in the aisle, my hand holding one of the rails. The metro got to one of the central stations where many people get off and on. As usually happens at this station, most of the people got up and exited. So now there were a lot of places that I could sit down at. However I forced myself to remain standing up. It took quite the effort to do that. Since as I was standing, I started feeling more and more tired and my legs started hurting more and more. I don’t know why I felt so tired, since I had just recently woken up from my sleep and had spent the previous few hours lying down. I think my body is so used to sitting down, that it craves it. This time, instead of giving up to this craving, I remained standing. Amazingly, after a while the feeling of tiredness went away and so did the leg pain.
You should do the same. Whenever you don’t have to sit, then don’t sit. Try to remain standing up. Even if your job is largely sedentary, get up from time to time and go for a walk. You will feel better and your body will get stronger. At first it might feel unnatural to remain standing when you can be sitting down, but after a while of doing this constantly, your body will get used to it. You will have formed a new beneficial habit! 🙂
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