{"id":39831,"date":"2015-05-07T11:15:50","date_gmt":"2015-05-07T15:15:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dailyburn.com\/life\/?p=39831"},"modified":"2016-07-14T16:02:56","modified_gmt":"2016-07-14T20:02:56","slug":"news-walking-two-extra-minutes-050715","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dailyburn.com\/life\/fitness\/news-walking-two-extra-minutes-050715\/","title":{"rendered":"Want to Live Longer? Walking 2 Extra Minutes an Hour May Help"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Want
Photo: Pond5<\/a><\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Wondering how much damage you\u2019re doing to your body by sitting on your keister<\/a> all day? Turns out it could be a lot \u2014\u00a0and replacing sitting with standing might not make much of a difference.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen people sit for a long time, it increases risk for obesity, diabetes and premature death,\u201d says Dr. Srinivasan Beddhu, professor of internal medicine at the University of Utah. Why? Well, when you\u2019re sitting, you\u2019re not burning many calories, so any excess food you consume is stored as fat. When fat mass increases, it creates oxidative stress in your fat tissue, which can lead to inflammation<\/a>, insulin resistance, diabetes, high blood pressure and other problems, Dr. Beddhu says. In other words, nothing good is happening to your body when it\u2019s in a La-Z-boy (or office chair).<\/p>\n

RELATED:<\/strong> Why Standing Desks Might Improve Concentration<\/a><\/p>\n

Taking a Stand Against Sitting<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Not willing to sacrifice your health for a comfy seat? In a recent study<\/a>, Beddhu and his fellow researchers explored how to counteract the side effects of sitting. Based on data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), researchers examined the habits of 3,243 study participants. Each person wore an accelerometer to measure the intensity of their daily activity, and their health was monitored for three years after the data was collected. Based on this information, researchers could estimate whether participants were sitting, standing, walking or doing more vigorous activities at any given time throughout the day.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt just means two minutes more of activity, and two minutes less of sedentary activity.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

RELATED:<\/strong> Why Vigorous Activity Might Be Worth the Extra Sweat<\/a><\/p>\n

Unfortunately, just standing up to stretch<\/a> every now and then might not be doing you much good. \u201cWhat we found was that on average people sit for about 35 minutes per hour, and if you trade two minutes of that for standing-intensity activities, there\u2019s not a benefit,\u201d Dr. Beddhu says. \u201cYet, when you trade two minutes of sitting for casual walking-intensity activities, there was a lower risk of death.\u201d<\/p>\n

Walking\u00a0the Walk<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Before you set your timer and head off on a two-minute stroll, Beddhu is quick to point out, \u201cIt just means two minutes more of activity, and two minutes less of sedentary activity. If a person is only doing eight minutes of light activity, they should [strive to do] 10, or if they could adjust it further that would be better.\u201d<\/p>\n

RELATED:<\/strong> What 5 Days of a High-Fat Diet Does to Your Muscles<\/a><\/p>\n

While much attention has been given to high-intensity exercise<\/a>, this research might finally give lower-intensity activity its moment in the spotlight. \u201cCurrent national guidelines focus on moderate physical activity so it was fascinating to see that light activity was associated with lower risk of death,\u201d Dr. Beddhu says. However, this doesn\u2019t mean you should trade your weekly HIIT sessions<\/a> for casual strolls. \u201cIt\u2019s very important that people do the moderate [to] vigorous activity as recommended, that is important for cardiovascular [health]<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

The first way to battle the side effects of sitting: Practicing sedentary awareness. \u201cThe first thing people should be aware of is how long they\u2019re sitting,\u201d Dr. Beddhu says. He suggests setting your phone alarm to remind you to get up and take a walk around the office every half hour at work. Or, if you\u2019re at home watching TV, use the commercial breaks as reminders to get up and move. \u201cWe should be taking frequent breaks from sitting,\u201d Dr. Beddhu says. \u201cHow many breaks you need per hour is controversial, but at least a couple of breaks per hour might be good.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It takes more than standing to undo the effects of sitting all day. Here\u2019s how swapping out seated time for walking might help. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":53,"featured_media":39835,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,24,6],"tags":[217,289,104,251,341,362],"class_list":["post-39831","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cardio","category-exercise","category-fitness","tag-disease","tag-exercise","tag-goals","tag-news","tag-tax1living-well","tag-tax2walking"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyburn.com\/life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39831","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyburn.com\/life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyburn.com\/life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyburn.com\/life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/53"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyburn.com\/life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39831"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyburn.com\/life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39831\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyburn.com\/life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39835"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyburn.com\/life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39831"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyburn.com\/life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39831"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyburn.com\/life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39831"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}