Sounds like 25 minutes of sitting a day is ok. Also, physically, sitting on the zafu with legs crossed feels healthier, more active than slouching in a office chair. It requires active balance for the abdomen, something my office chair does not require.
Perhaps I should switch my office to be standing all day. On Thursday, January 13, 2011, Kristy McClain <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > Amen. > > Thanks for sharing this! k > > > --- On Thu, 1/13/11, Edgar Owen <[email protected]> wrote: > > > From: Edgar Owen <[email protected]> > Subject: [Zen] News: Can sitting too much kill you? > To: [email protected] > Date: Thursday, January 13, 2011, 5:22 AM > > > > > > For all you deluded ones who believe that sitting instead of daily life is > Zen. > :-) > > > Edgar > > > > > > > > Can sitting too much kill you? > By Travis Saunders | Jan 6, 2011 10:39 AM > We all know that physical activity is important for good health—regardless of > your age, gender or body weight, living an active lifestyle can improve your > quality of life and dramatically reduce your risk of death and disease. But > even if you are meeting current physical activity guidelines by exercising > for one hour per day (something few Americans manage on a consistent basis), > that leaves 15 to 16 hours per day when you are not being active. Does it > matter how you spend those hours, which account for more than 90% of your > day? For example, does it matter whether you spend those 16 hours sitting on > your butt, versus standing or walking at a leisurely pace? Fortunately or > unfortunately, new evidence suggests that it does matter, and in a big way. > What is sedentary behavior? > Before we go any further, it’s important that we define the term "sedentary > behavior". Sedentary behavior is typically defined as any behavior with an > exceedingly low energy expenditure (defined as <1.5 metabolic equivalents). > In general, this means that almost any time you are sitting (e.g. working on > a computer, watching TV, driving) or lying down, you are engaging in > sedentary behavior. There are a few notable exceptions when you can be > sitting or lying down but still expend high energy expenditure (e.g. riding a > stationary bike), but in general if you are sitting down, you are being > sedentary. > The above definition may seem rather intuitive, but this is not the way that > the term sedentary has been used by exercise science researchers for the past > 50 years. Up until very recently, referring to someone as sedentary meant > simply that they were not meeting current guidelines for physical activity. > In simple terms, if you were exercising for 60+ minutes/day, you were > considered physically active. If you were exercising 10 minutes/day, you were > sedentary. Case closed. But as we will discuss below, sedentary time is > closely associated with health risk regardless of how much physical activity > you perform on a daily basis. Further, it is entirely possible to meet > current physical activity guidelines while still being incredibly sedentary. > Thus, to quote researcher Marc Hamilton, sitting too much is not the same as > exercising too little. (if you take only one thing from this post, let it be > that quote from Dr Hamilton). > Which is why it is so important that when we use the term "sedentary", we > are all on the same page about what that means. > Now that we know what sedentary behavior is, let’s look at its relationship > with health risk. > Epidemiological Evidence > In 2009 Dr Peter Katzmarzyk and colleagues at the Pennington Biomedical > Research Center published an influential longitudinal paper examining the > links between time spent sitting and mortality in a sample of more than > 17,000 Canadians (available > here <http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19346988?ordinalpos=2&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_DefaultReportPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum>). > Not surprisingly, they report that time spent sitting was associated with > increased risk of all-cause and cardiovascular disease mortality (there was > no association between sitting and deaths due to cancer). But what is > fascinating is that the relationship between sitting time and mortality was > independent of physical activity levels. In fact, individuals who sat the > most were roughly 50% more likely to die during the follow-up period than > individuals who sat the least, even after > controlling for age, smoking, and physical activity levels. Further analyses > suggested that the relationship between sitting time and mortality was also > independent of body weight. This suggests that all things being equal (body > weight, physical activity levels, smoking, alcohol intake, age, and sex) the > person who sits more is at a higher risk of death than the person who sits > less. > The above findings linking excessive sitting with poor health are far from > isolated. For example, a similar longitudinal > study <http://circ.ahajournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/121/3/384> from > Australia reports that each hour of daily television viewing (a proxy of > sedentary time) is associated with an 11% increase in the risk of all-cause > mortality regardless of age, sex, waist circumference, and physical activity > level. And as my colleagues and > > > > > > > > ------------------------------------ Current Book Discussion: any Zen book that you recently have read or are reading! Talk about it today!Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Zen_Forum/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Zen_Forum/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: [email protected] [email protected] <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [email protected] <*> Your use of Yahoo! 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