How Bad is Sitting All Day for your Health? How Sitting is the New Smoking.

How bad is sitting all day? We’ve all heard the line that “sitting is the new smoking”. There’s a lot of truth to that statement. 

At The Keys To Fitness, we simplify fitness for everyone and help heavier people who are ready to get fit and stay fit. 

And in this post, we’ll go over how sitting all day is bad for your health, sitting’s mental and physical impact, why exercise doesn’t fully undo sitting, and simple ways to sit less and move more. 

The Hidden Danger of Sitting All Day

Did you know that the average adult sits for 8-10 hours a day? If you have an office job, you’re more likely in this category. 

You may think that you don’t sit that long, but think about it. Most of us lie down for 8 hours a night (which is great), but then sit to eat, sit on the commute to work, sit at work, sit at lunch, sit on the way home, sit to relax, sit at dinner, and jump right back into bed for another 8 hours of lying down. 

You may be sitting down as you read these words right now. Don’t feel bad, I’m sitting down as I write them. 

The problem is that the human body was built to move, not remain sedentary for extended periods of time. 

Sitting obviously reduces your energy output, or simply put: you burn less calories when you sit a lot. And for prolonged bouts of being on your butt, you risk slowing down your metabolism and causing your body to gain fat. 

The only way to lose fat is to burn more calories than you eat. 

So if you’re not burning that many calories, you must either eat very little to maintain your weight (because you’re burning very little) or just gain a bunch of fat because your body has nothing else to do with the extra calories. 

This is why sitting for long portions of your day is linked to serious chronic health issues like type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and cancer. 

This is because when you sit for extended periods of time, your muscles become inactive (especially in your legs, which are the biggest muscles on your body). 

This inactivity dramatically reduces your body’s ability to absorb and use glucose (sugar) effectively, which can increase your body’s resistance to insulin over time. This is how being sedentary can lead to raising your risk of developing type 2 diabetes. 

In addition to insulin resistance, chronic sitting leads to slowing down the blood flow, especially in the legs, and increases your chances of developing blood clots and poor circulation. 

These clots can become dangerous if they break loose and travel to the lungs and cause a pulmonary embolism. 

At the same time, a long-term sedentary lifestyle will lower your HDL (aka the good cholesterol) and raise your triglycerides, both of which are strong risk factors for cardiovascular disease. 

It can also raise your blood pressure and increase inflammation throughout your body, which are also key contributors to heart disease.

And to tie this up in a neat little bow, sitting for long periods of time may shorten your life expectancy by years. Largely due to any combination of the detriments of sitting that we’ve already named, you can clearly start to understand how sitting is bad for your health. 

In fact, multiple large studies have found that people who sit for 6 plus hours a day have a significantly higher risk of an early death – even after controlling for physical activity. 

Basically, the more you sit, the higher the risk of an early death, often compared to smoking in terms of mortality.

Sadly, this is only the beginning of how horrible a sedentary lifestyle can be for your health. 

The Physical and Mental Impact of Chronic Sitting

Staying in a seated position for long periods of time will lead to tight hips and hamstrings, weakened glutes, and low back pain. All of which are common issues caused by long-term sitting and even worse, usually each symptom worsens the other. 

Not to mention the postural problems caused by constantly leaning forward and rounding your shoulders. This excessive rounding of the shoulders causes the forward head, hunchback look you see more commonly today. 

Take a second to look up what upper cross syndrome is, you’ll recognize it everywhere you go these days. 

And if you needed more motivation to get up and move around, slouching can compress your organs, reduce your lung capacity, and reduce oxygen flow. 

No bueno. 

What’s not talked about enough is the mental impact that sitting all day can create. The reduced blood flow not only affects your heart and muscles, it affects your brain. 

Symptoms like mental fatigue, fogginess, mood swings, cognitive function, and focus can all be worsened with a lack of movement. 

In fact, being sedentary is linked to feelings of depression and anxiety. And in this study, they found that long-term sedentary behavior, or being sedentary for 600 minutes a day, was significantly associated with symptoms of depression. 

Over time, chronic sitting can even contribute to spinal disc problems and nerve compression. 

And even if you have a good mattress, poor posture from sitting all day usually leads to even worse sleep. And sleep is vital for your recovery and mood.

So if your sleep is bad, you’re only going to make things worse. And now it can become a never ending cycle. 

Why Exercise Doesn’t Fully Cancel Out Being Sedentary

You may be thinking to yourself that you get plenty of exercise every day. “I workout every single day, this doesn’t affect me!”

You might be working out every day l, and that’s great. 

But this is a numbers game. 

Your 30 to 60 minute workouts every day doesn’t reverse 8-10 hours of daily inactivity. It’s simply impossible. 

Studies are now showing how chronic sitting can actually counterbalance the positive effects of exercise. Crazy. 

What people don’t understand is that movement throughout the day is essential for metabolic health. Long bouts of inactivity will spike your inflammation, regardless of your fitness level. 

Your level of NEAT (Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis) drops with prolonged sitting, which can lead to slowing down your fat loss or speed up your fat gain. 

And if you didn’t know, all NEAT is are the regular movements you do every day. Things like fidgeting, tapping your feet, pacing, yard work, any movement really that isn’t structured exercise all count as NEAT. 

True health comes from your total daily movements, not just gym sessions or sports practices. 

Which is what we’ll get into next. 

Simple Ways to Sit Less and Move More

It’s obviously a good idea to get up and move around a little every once in a while. A great way to do this is to set an alarm to get up and move every 30 to 60 minutes. 

Most smartwatches, like fitbit, are capable of sending you a reminder to move to keep you from sitting too long. 

If you have an office job, try swapping your desk out for a standing desk. If you’re unable to make a complete swap, you can always buy a standing desk stand for your computer to sit on. It sits on top of your desk, lifting up your computer screen and forcing you to stand up. 

If you have meetings over the phone, try walking outside or around the office to build some activity into your workday. I’ve even heard that this boosts productivity for in-person meetings as well!

The goal here is to increase your NEAT, and another great habit to do that would be to take a short walk after each meal. 

This is an easy habit to add to your day. For me, I’ve watched this little habit boost my daily steps by 3k a day! Simply go for a 10 minute walk after each of your meals. And an extra benefit of this is that it helps you digest your food better!

Another awesome trick to increasing your activity is to park farther away from your destination. The next time you go to the store, park as far away from the store as possible within the parking lot. This way, you’ll have to walk further to and from your car when you’re running your errands. 

You can also build habits like pacing while you talk on the phone, stand while you read, walk while you brush your teeth, or stretch while you watch TV. 

If stretching isn’t your thing, mobility drills may be just what you need. A great hack I’ve heard from Adam Schaefer was to do mobility drills during commercial breaks every time he sat down to watch TV. Perfect. 

Adding just 5-10 minutes of stretching or mobility work will do wonders for your body in short order. This trick, I highly recommend. 

Another great idea is to drink from smaller water bottles. Because of this, you’ll have to get up more often to refill your drink. And in addition to this bottle hack, try increasing your water intake. 

By drinking more water, you’ll force yourself to get up more often because you’ll be moving yourself to the bathroom more often. This makes increasing your activity almost automatic!

Key Takeaway: Stand Up for Your Health

So, how bad is sitting all day? 

Pretty bad. 

Sitting by itself isn’t bad. To be clear, what’s bad is chronic sitting. Movement is thy medicine and your body needs it often throughout the day. 

The good thing is, you don’t really need to overhaul your entire life. All you need to do is simply interrupt long bouts of sitting consistently. 

Once you reduce the amount of time you spend being sedentary, you’ll begin to feel improvements in your mood, energy, posture, and long-term health. 

Just take one of these habits and tricks and start small. Even a break to get up and move around and stretch once every hour adds up to real change. 

Thankfully, most chronic issues caused by sitting all day can be reversed with regular movement. Just remember that your workouts matter but your daily activity matters more than what most think. 

So stand up, move around, and take control of your health one step at a time.

Let me know which habit or activity hack you’ll try to add into your life. Or tell me about some tricks you’ve added that weren’t mentioned here, I’d love to know!

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