The Silent Killer: How Prolonged Sitting is Sabotaging Your Health and the Quick Fixes You Need Now

Hey there, Gen-Xers! Welcome back to another episode of "Just Start," where we're all about taking small steps to make a big impact on your health and well-being. I'm your host, Neil D., and today we're diving deep into a topic that affects us all but is often overlooked—prolonged sitting.

You might be thinking, "Sitting? Really? How bad can it be?" Well, you're in for a wake-up call. We're talking about the silent but deadly impact of sitting too much—everything from skyrocketing your risk of heart disease, diabetes, and obesity to messing up your posture in ways that can haunt you for years. And let's not forget the mental fog that creeps in, making you less sharp, less focused, and less... well, you.

But don't worry, we're not just here to scare you; we're here to offer solutions. We'll be sharing quick fixes to improve your posture, boost your energy, and clear that mental fog. So, if you're ready to make a real change, stick around till the end. You won't want to miss this.

Get ready to be enlightened, empowered, and maybe a little bit shocked. But most importantly, get ready to take action because, as we always say, "small steps lead to big results when you just start!"

Other episodes mentioned in this podcast
Nutritional Awareness
Breath work
Hydration

Research Sources
Stand Up Every 30 Minutes: European Heart Journal, 2018.
Standing Desks: Journal of Physical Activity and Health, 2015.
Walks: Psychological Science, 2014. 

Other
Free Pomodoro Timer There are tons of apps, plugins etc.., this one is a good online option.
My Standing Desk Setup 

Office Gear To Keep You Fit and Focused
Optimize your workspace for fitness with my go-to desks and accessories for better posture.

THE BEST DB's FOR FEEL, LOOK AND QUALITY
I love using these DBs more than any of my other DBs. Use CODE: CF365 for a great DISCOUNT

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Chapters

• 1:20 Habits outside the gym affect training results
• 5:36 Sitting for extended periods of time can lead to
• 8:06 Pelvic posture
• 10:49 The 90 90 rule
• 16:01 A routine with consistent, moderate exercise
• 16:56 Strength training for improved muscle tone and metabolic rate

Transcript

Hey. So today I want to speak specifically to you guys who spend a lot of time in chairs, maybe at work or commuting. I want to give you a few tips on what you can do to improve your posture, your energy, and your mental clarity. In years past as a gym owner, I saw a lot of people come in with great intentions, begin an exercise program and disappear in a few weeks or sometimes even a few days.

Host [00:01:20]:

But there was also another group of people that, regardless the condition in which they walked in the door, were more often able to adapt to the training programs pretty quickly, sometimes and get good and sometimes great benefits and results. The big difference between the two groups were often the habits that were developed and maintained outside of the gym. So today we're going to talk about movement, one of those habits, movement. Because if you want to gain speed in your training success, you need to start slow. Because slow is smooth, and smooth is fast, right? So smooth becomes fast much quicker than going full tilt into a wall of pain and potential injury, especially if you are presently more sedentary than active right now. So to prevent that wall from smacking you upside the head, we're going to add you to the successful group. And to do that, we're going to discuss some of the facts associated with lack of movement. And then we're going to give you what you can do to start moving safely today.

Host [00:02:21]:

In earlier episodes, we talked about the five baby steps in successfully preparing yourself to begin your fitness journey, which were 1, nutritional awareness. 2, breathing. 3, hydration. 4, walking (movement), which we'll discuss today, and sleep, rest, and 5, recovery, which will be around the corner. So I'm going to add some links to the topics already covered in the show notes for everybody interested in going back and checking those out. So now we've set the stage. Let's dive right away into why your comfy chair might be more of a frenemy than a friend. 

Host [00:02:53]:

 All right, so to understand the impact of sitting, let's take a look at the toll inflicted by sitting. First of all, prolonged sitting has been linked to a higher risk of heart disease, of diabetes and obesity. Well, they sort of go hand in hand, right? Being sedentary hand in hand with heart disease, diabetes, and obesity. Sure, I can follow that. Now, there's a study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine that suggests that those who sit for long periods are at higher risks of earlier death. I'll put a link to that. But yeah, not good, right? But before death, you're going to have a whole bunch of other problems, right? And one of those things is going to be postural problems. So sitting for long periods can lead to slouching, which puts undue stress on the back and the shoulders, potentially leading to chronic issues.

 Host [00:03:38]:

And here's three of chronic issues that I see that are pretty common, okay? And they're frustrated by just like by desk work, okay? Sitting for a long period of time, forward head posture. This happens when your neck slants forward, placing the head in front of their shoulders. It's sometimes called text neck or forward head, but it's common in people who frequently look down at their phones. Also, people who get really immersed into their work and they gravitate, their eyes are pulling them, their head towards the screen. And this posture leads to muscle strain. It leads to disc herniations in your cervical spine, leads to pinched nerves and yeah, it's not fun, right? Another thing that we see commonly enough is a little condition called rounded shoulders. This is where your shoulders, they come out in front, okay? It follows the forward head. So you got this forward head, you got your shoulders rounded off in front.

Host [00:04:34]:

It's often called computer posture. This is when the shoulders roll forward. It's often accompanied, like I said, by the forward head, rounded upper back. It leads to muscle imbalances. It leads to shoulder pains, increased risk of shoulder injuries down the road. Not fun. You get nerve pains and issues from this. And last but not least, in my 3 most wanted, or least wanted, I promise you three.

Host [00:05:00]:

Here's the third anterior pelvic tilt. This is when the front of the pelvis drops and the back of the pelvis rises. So it's often caused by sitting too much, and it can lead to lower back pain. It's really common for lower back pain and increases stress on the hips and even issues with the knees and ankles. I said I was going to talk about three conditions, but there's a fourth that I really want to throw in there. It's tight. SOAS so the psoas muscle, it's a long muscle that runs on both sides of your lower spine and it connects through the pelvis and attaching to the top of your thigh bone. Think of it as the bridge between your upper and lower body.

Host [00:05:36]:

Now, it plays a crucial role in actions like walking and running and even standing upright. Now, when you're sitting for extended periods of time, the psoas muscle is in a shortened position, and over time, this causes the muscle to adapt to this shortened length, making it tighter and less flexible. So a tight psoas is often what people will talk about when they say that they have a lower back pain. They'll talk about a lower back pain, hip discomfort, and even postural compensation as a result of this. And for men, well, for anybody in their forty s, fifty s who've been sitting around for a long time and you have back pain, there's a very, very strong possibility that at least some of that back pain is being brought on by a tight psoas, right? Especially if you have a sedentary job. This becomes a significant issue and it affects a lot of people and it's going to affect your mobility and your overall well being throughout your day. Okay? Now each of these postural problems that we discussed, they're like catalysts that can cause a cascade of musculoskeletal issues. And fortunately, however, they're avoidable with a few tips that I have for you towards the end of this podcast.

Host [00:06:45]:

Something else that's sitting around leading you to death is it's good for muscle atrophy, right? It's good for the lack of movement, contributes to muscle weakness. So it's really great for making you weak, particularly in the legs and glutes and reducing your overall physical strength and stability. It's fantastic for that. So obviously we want to counter that. And guess what? Sitting around sitting for long periods of time also contributes to mental fog. Anybody know what I mean? Mental fog. Reduced blood circulation from sitting can lead to decreased mental clarity. Mental fog, which is going to affect your ability to focus and perform at work, not good.

Host [00:07:23]:

We don't want this. We want to get rid of all of this, okay? We want to live long. We want to be mentally acute. So I hope you've never felt like a weak little shrimp hunched over in brain fog during a long session of desking. But now let's discuss some of the quick fixes to make sure that your next sitting session is less damaging to your posture than it's ever been before. Okay? So let's discuss postural cues, some easy ways to improve your seated stance. We talked about anterior pelvic tilt. We're going to start off with that, okay? Pelvic tilt, how to adjust your pelvis to align with your spine to create a solid sitting foundation and improve your overall posture. 

Host [00:08:06]:

 Okay, that's going to go all the way up through your shoulders into your neck. So I want you to imagine that your pelvis is like a bowl of water, and if you tilt it too far forward or backward, you're going to spill that water. So what you want to do is keep that bowl level so that the water stays put. When you get this right, it naturally helps the rest of your body, like your back and your shoulders, can also help alleviate that forward head stay by helping you to stay in a comfortable and healthy position. So I want you to try to keep your bowl or your bucket nice and level while you're sitting or standing. It's a simple trick, but it makes a big difference for your posture. Okay? Second little tip I'm going to talk to you about is the shoulder blade squeeze. It's a straightforward exercise to improve your posture and strengthen the muscles between your shoulder blades.

Host [00:08:54]:

I'm going to give you a couple of simple cues to perform them correctly, okay? So come back and reference this section often. Okay, so your starting position, your start position could be either sitting or standing up straight. You want your arms by your side and make sure your feet are flat on the floor if you are sitting. Now, you want your shoulders down. So before you start, you're going to roll your shoulders up back and then put them down. Pull them down in a neutral position, almost as if you're trying to put your scapula in your back pockets. Okay? No strain there, but just in a good neutral position. Now I want you to visualize or imagine that you have a pencil between your shoulder blades, okay? So between your shoulder blades there's a pencil or a ball or an orange, whatever.

Host [00:09:35]: 

And your goal is to squeeze that object using your shoulder blades, okay? So you're going to squeeze by slowly drawing your shoulder blades together as if you're trying to squeeze that imaginary object, okay? That pencil or orange ball, whatever. Keep your arms relaxed at your sides as you do this and put your hands on your hips, okay? So hold and release. Hold the squeeze for about three to 5 seconds. You're going to feel the muscles between your shoulder blades contracting. If it starts to cramp, don't be like freaked out or nothing. It's just your body saying, hey, I haven't done this before. What's up? And then you're going to slowly release them back to the starting position. And what I'd suggest is just maybe do like a set of ten to 15 squeezes to start and work your way up as you get stronger.

 Host [00:10:21]:

And you're more used to this, okay? Just remember that you want to be smooth. You want to be it to be a controlled movement. So don't jerk or force your shoulder blades together. The goal is really to engage the muscles in a way that helps to counteract the forward shoulder posture that so many of us develop from sitting too much. This happens to me, too. This happens to anybody that's in front of a screen for a long time. It's not a question of sitting perfectly all the time. It's just mitigating it and being conscious of it.

Host [00:10:49]:

Right now there's something else I want to bring your attention to is something called the 90 90 rule. Not the 90 90 exercise, but the 90 90 rule. So what you want to do is you want to aim to have both feet flat on the floor with a 90 degree angle at your knees and your hips. This is going to give you a solid base that's going to support good posture. And that good posture is going to help you to keep your shoulders back. It's going to help you keep your pelvis at a correct angle and it's going to keep your head anatomically correct as opposed to jutting out forward. And by the way, your head weighs a couple of pounds when it's positioned properly. When your joints are stacked and it's being held properly, when it's forward, it increases up to twice its normal weight and that puts a lot of strain.

Host [00:11:34]:

People actually have injured herniated discs in their cervical spine as a result of chronic forward head. So you don't want to go there. And the last tip I'm going to give you is simply your screen level. You want to have like eye level screen. So keeping your computer screen at eye level is going to help you to avoid from looking down or up. And that's going to help avoid a little bit of strain on your neck and your upper spine. So I hope these cues will help you to make friends with your chair in a healthier way, but sometimes you just need to stand up and shake it off. So let's talk about that now.

Host [00:12:07]:

Okay, I think that standing up every 30 minutes so you're there. I mean, listen, how many of us are in front of our computer screens for hour on end standing up every 30 minutes? Okay, actually, I think there's a study there's a study that found that standing up every 30 minutes can help offset the negative impacts of sitting. And I mean, why wouldn't it, right? There's a little eye strain exercise that I do myself. It's where I like, every 20 minutes, I try to look 20ft away for 20 seconds. And that's supposed to be really good for eye strain throat. So it only serves to make sense that doing something similar for the rest of your body will be a good thing. So standing up every 30 minutes, that can be really good. So you set like a pomodoro timer or something like that, every 30 minutes, bang.

Host [00:12:54]:

Stand up. Which brings me to my next point of standing desks. Now I own two standing desks. I own an elevating desk where the entire desk elevates, and I also own another standing desk adapter, which goes on another desk and just like a portion of it moves. I love them both. I like the first one so much that it caught the eye of my wife who decided she wanted it, and then I lost it and I got myself another one. Standing desks are awesome. So switching to a standing desk for me for so many reasons, has been a big game changer for posture and overall health sometimes I feel in better mood, I feel better energy levels when I'm using it, it's a great alternative. 

Host [00:13:38]:

And they're pretty cheap now because they're really popular. I'll put links to the ones that I own myself and that I enjoy in the show notes. So stretching. Stretching. Okay, here's another thing you can do when you stand up, get away from your desk for like, your five minute stint. It can literally be like 30 seconds. You can just perform a few simple little stretches, like a quad pull, maybe some arm stretches, some arm rotations. And it's going to help to really alleviate muscle tension. 

Host [00:14:08]:

Now, my favorite, if you work with me, you know, my favorite is going to be the big stretch. Okay? It's a combination of a whole bunch of things. It's really simple to perform. The only thing with this is that it's going to probably if you're dressed, you're going to sort of like, pull that a little bit out of the belt. But you know what? It's worth it. Who cares? It doesn't matter. I don't know. Go take a walk. 

Host [00:14:27]:

Go to a hallway. Do it. It's going to be awesome. And walking, even a five minute walk around the office, even a two minute walk around the office can improve your mental clarity and your focus. Okay? So get away from the desk every 30 minutes. Take like 30 seconds a minute. Just get out there, do something a couple of minutes. And number five, hydrate.

Host [00:14:46]:

So use these breaks to drink water, which, you'll know, from our last podcast, is crucial for bodily functions and mental clarity. So there you go. Stand up every 30 minutes, standing desks for the wind, stretch, walk, and hydrate. So you've stood up, done all these things, stretched, and maybe even took a quick walk. But how does all this movement help clear up the mental fog? Well, let's take a look at that. All right, so here we go with the mind body connection and how movement enhances mental clarity. So first off, we have an increased blood flow. Exercise increases blood flow to the brain, which enhances cognitive function. 

Host [00:15:22]

There's endorphin release, which happens because physical activity releases endorphins, which act as natural mood lifters. Good, right? Reduce stress. Exercise has been shown to reduce levels of the body's stress hormones such as adrenaline and cortisol, and also enhance creativity. So movement breaks really are good. So movement breaks can actually stimulate creativity and problem solving skills. So, yeah, when you've been sitting down for a while and you notice that your problem solving abilities seem to be a little bit dull, they need to be dusted off. Think about getting up, walking around a bit, go hydrate, go stretch. Do those exercises that we discussed.

 Host [00:16:01]:

 Take a look at doing some shoulder blade squeezes, maybe like adjust your pelvic tilt. I mean, these are all good things, right? Get up, take a walk. So we've covered a lot of ground from sitting to standing to mental clarity. Now let's tie it all together with a few simple exercise cues to build a routine to help keep you moving. All right? So first thing that we want to do is we want to look at consistency over intensity. Research shows that consistent moderate exercise is a lot more beneficial long term than occasional intense exercise. Okay? And so basically what I'm saying here is that I'd rather see you do something a couple of times a week than do something all out and then not do anything else for like a couple of weeks or a month or something or maybe longer. And incorporating strength training, now you'll remember from one of the episodes we did recently, I think it was like the second one or something, we talked a lot about resistance training in there.

Host [00:16:56]:

Give you a lot of cues there, go back, check that one out if you want. But incorporating strength training, now even basic body weight exercises like push ups, squats, can make a significant difference in muscle tone and metabolic rate and the way you feel your energy, okay, all those good things reduce stress, endorphin, release, okay? Clarity. Another cue for you is to set realistic goals. Now having achievable targets keeps you motivated and it reduces the risk of burnout or injury because really, at the end of the day, it's not as much about the destination in the beginning as it is the road traveled. And you want to make sure that the road traveled is as smooth as you can possibly make it. Okay? So listening to Just Start taking all these cues, doing all these little things to get you ready for a more comprehensive fitness program, this is fantastic. This is going to help you to smooth out that road. Okay? And of course, quality over quantity.

Host [00:17:50]:

 So how is this different from consistency over intensity? Well, quality over quantity means what I want you to take away from that is that I'd rather have you do 15 minutes of high quality exercise than 60 minutes of low quality exercise. As a matter of fact, I would rather you did five minutes of high quality exercise than any amount of low quality exercise. Why? Okay, what does high quality mean? It means that you're actually focusing on form. You're doing things properly, you're going slow, which is smooth, which is fast. Okay, full circle there. Okay. All right, gents, we've talked the talk and now it's time to walk the walk. Even if it's just around the office or during a lunch break.

Host [00:18:30]: 

Your chair might be comfy, but remember, comfort zones rarely lead to growth or a healthy back. So I've included some of the references to scientific journals we've discussed and I'll drop those in the show notes along with some links to some of the things that we've also mentioned. And the last piece of information that I want you to take away is that even small changes lead to big results. Till next time. Train smart, eat smart, enjoy life, talk soon. You've been listening to? Just Start. Early in life, Neil D went from a skinny to a muscular physique when trends and lifestyle choices led him down a path of fat gain and lost motivation. His determination to end the madness became a transformative system and a passion for helping Gen X live the fitness lifestyle for fat loss, mobility and muscular development.

Voice Guy [00:19:18]: 

We hope you liked the show. If you did, like, rate and review for more info and to reach out to Coach Neil D personally, find us on Facebook and Instagram. See you next time on Just Start.