3 Short Walking Breaks Can Reverse Harm From 3 Hours of Sitting

An anonymous reader writes: Medical researchers have been steadily building evidence that prolonged sitting is awful for your health. One major problem is that blood can pool in the legs of a seated person, causing arteries to start losing their ability to control the rate of blood flow. A new experimental study (abstract) has discovered it's quite easy to negate these detrimental health effects: all you need to do is take a leisurely, 5-minute walk for every hour you sit. "The researchers were able to demonstrate that during a three-hour period, the flow-mediated dilation, or the expansion of the arteries as a result of increased blood flow, of the main artery in the legs was impaired by as much as 50 percent after just one hour. The study participants who walked for five minutes for each hour of sitting saw their arterial function stay the same — it did not drop throughout the three-hour period. Thosar says it is likely that the increase in muscle activity and blood flow accounts for this."

Comments

Re:What's "Easy" About This?

[BasilBrush]

What's this "leave the office" and adding 5-10 minutes bit? As soon as you stand up, your 5 minutes starts, and it only ends when you sit down again. Walking down the corridor counts. Walking down and up the stairs if your office isn't on the ground floor counts extra.
Total time required = 5 minutes.

Besides, even shorter periods will help. I believe Apples Watch gamification of fitness targets one minute of standing/walking for each hour of sitting. Which would certainly be an improvement for a lot of office workers.

Going to talk to colleagues in person rather than using phones or email every once in a while is a good way to get moving whilst still working.

ah

[Charliemopps]

This is why coffee is good for your health. It makes me get up and walk twice an hour. Once to get it, and once to put it back.