Wednesday, September 1, 2010

Sitting is Lethal!


I recently read about a study showing how sitting decreases life span. According to this study, every hour spent sitting meant an 18% increase in deaths from heart disease and an 11% increase in overall mortality. Ack! This scares me because most of the jobs I have ever had involved sitting for eight hours a day. Recently, I've been doing too much sitting and not enough getting up and walking around.

As part of my personal "rebirth" I have promised myself to get into better physical shape. To this end, I am trying to spend less time sitting. I've been walking around my house, looking for things that need to be done. This has led to more cleaning, organizing and decluttering. Also, my sixty-something neighbor recently told me about a senior yoga class at the YMCA. Yesterday I went with her. It looks something like this:


Some of it was done sitting and some was done standing. I wonder... is sitting okay if you are doing yoga? Anyway, it was a good stretch. I think I can do yoga without a chair, though. Maybe more like this:


Though I kind of doubt that I will ever be doing this:


It does look very healthy though, doesn't it? I guess the important thing is to just keep moving!

4 comments:

Bearette said...

That last one, tripod headstand, is very hard. I was never able to do that, and I taught yoga!

Natalie, the Chickenblogger said...

I'm with you Judy. Keep it up, and I will too... just making the push to move! I think every bit is better than nothing.

judy in ky said...

I think so too, Natalie!

Catherine said...

Haha ~ that is funny about sitting while doing yoga! I wonder if it counts doing some leg lifts while sitting on my computer chair? Not that I do any ~ but I could! :)

Very good post ~ sometimes we forget that we need to 'just keep moving'. I think I will take a walk today ~ you have inspired me!

Have a fantastic weekend Judy!
xo Catherine