Who invented chairs? Wikipedia, of course, delves into that question, which intrigues me. What did people do before chairs? Sit on the ground. Sit on pillows, walk around a lot, stand. Be active. Then chairs became a thing.
So how much time do I spend sitting? Short answer: Lots.
Harvard researchers recently came up with some data on how much time people spend sitting daily, as part of a study on how movement (or the lack of it) may impact heart health.
Here’s what they found:
Based on a week’s worth of data, the average participant’s day consisted of 7.7 hours sleeping, 10.4 hours sitting, 3.1 hours standing, 1.5 hours doing light physical activity, and 1.3 hours doing moderate-to-vigorous physical activity. Note that the participants probably didn’t do 1.3 hours of structured moderate- or vigorous-intensity exercise per day. Rather, the trackers recorded and added up all their short bouts of activity, such as walking up a flight of stairs or running to catch a bus.
They used computer modeling to conclude that swapping out even brief amounts of time — 5 minutes, for example — of sitting with some form of exercise could improve heart health.
This has me curious about how much time I spend sitting. This morning, for example, I’ve been at my computer for an hour and 15 minutes and it’s not even 8:30 yet.
I think I’ll keep tabs on my sitting for a week, get a base line, and then consider modifying my behavior. As a writer, sitting is built into my life, but I do have a height-adjustable desk, so standing-writing isn’t out of the question.
I like how a daily Nia practice is sufficiently embedded in me that 5 minutes (which I did on Monday) or 20 minutes (which I did yesterday), gets me off my chair.
Susan Palmer's Exquisite Now 