#30: Doing Too Much of Nothing
Are we really "sitting ourselves to death"?
Sitting [not so] Pretty
There’s so much innovation happening around making physical activity more appealing.
Luxury gyms like LifeTime and Equinox are creating wellness Meccas.
Running clubs make getting your steps in a social event.
Smart bikes are letting users ride anywhere in the world.
Exercise has been dressed up to the max, with hopes that more people will engage. However, we are not paying enough attention to how we spend the rest of our day, which has serious implications for our health.
The phrase sitting is the new smoking was first coined by Dr. James Levine a decade ago. At the time, he may have sounded crazy, going so far as to say that we lose two hours of life for every hour we sit. But today, researchers have linked prolonged sitting to a whole host of health consequences.
A 2011 study documented 800,000 people and their sitting habits. People who sat the most, compared with people who sat the least, had:
a 90% increased risk of death from cardiovascular events,
a 102% increased risk of heart attack and stroke,
a 112% increased risk of diabetes.
As a nation, we’ve been concerned about our sitting track record for a while now—check out the November 1961 Issue of The Atlantic, We May Be Sitting Ourselves to Death. Sedentary rates have only gone up since then, with the global average today being 8.65 hours/day, and Americans faring even worse averaging ~9.5 hours.
We might really be sitting ourselves to death.
Sedentary behavior is responsible for a 20-30% increased risk of death compared to sufficiently active people.
Each year, physical inactivity contributes to 5.3 million preventable deaths worldwide.
Spending most of the workday sitting led to a 16% increased risk of all-cause mortality in a cohort of over 480,000 individuals.
Sitting for 11.7 hours or more per day increased the risk of death by 30% in a study population of nearly 6,000 older women.
Desk Jobs
Spending more time sitting hasn’t completely been a choice. From the 1960s to 2008, jobs requiring moderate physical activity decreased from 48% to 20%, as the demand for social and analytical skills has outpaced the demand for physical skills.
One hundred years ago, farming was the number one occupation. But between 1910 and 2000, the proportion of farmers and farm laborers declined from 33% to just 1.2% of total employment.
In the same time period, sedentary jobs in the US private sector increased from 2% to 15%, with the most common occupations today being desk jobs—software developers, secretaries, and financial analysts, to name a few.
By some accounts, up to 82% of work hours are spent sedentary, with 41% of that time occurring in long bouts (>30 minutes). A 9-5 desk job means people are already sitting for the better part of 8 hours per day.
Reversing a Sedentary Crisis
As technology continues to advance, jobs will increasingly require less movement. By 2027, America will have a freelance-majority workforce, meaning more remote work conducted through screens.
While we can’t change occupation trends, we can be more mindful of inactivity, and how we can reverse the effects of sitting. The NYT recently published a piece on treadmill desks becoming more mainstream, and I’m all for it. Huberman says a mixture of sitting and standing is the best solution for desk jobs—taking a 5-15 minute stroll after every 45 minutes of work.
Luckily, when it comes to breaking up sitting with movement, a little goes a long way:
Limiting sedentary time to less than 4 hours per day is as effective as high levels of physical activity at preventing mortality.
Regularly climbing stairs lowers the risk of dying from any cause by up to 24%.
A 30-minute absolute decrease in sitting time per day has an instant impact on all-cause mortality.
Health Coaching
Spending our days at desks and in Zoom meetings, we are more physically inactive than ever before. But it’s hard to remember to take walking breaks, especially when they aren’t accepted and normalized in work settings.
Digital health coaching platforms like Future and Noom—which already support members to exercise and eat right, respectively—are poised to take on a whole new meaning. Imagine reminders from real coaches throughout the day, telling you to get up from your desk and take a stroll.
There are also stand-alone apps (no pun intended) like Moova, Stand Up!, and Time Out, that specifically notify users when they’ve been sitting for a certain amount of time. It’s much easier, though, to ignore an automated notification than it is to ignore a human on the other end of your device.
But before any personal trainer, AI coach, or generic app, improving work culture to foster more opportunities for physical activity will be the key to decreasing sedentary time. More stairs, more long hallways, and more coworkers keeping one another accountable.
Mind-Body Disparity
Humans are experiencing a disparity between what’s going on in our minds versus what’s going on with our bodies.
Our minds are hyperactive—overstimulated by the constant emptying of dopamine reservoirs through scrolling, engineered foods, and substance use. As a result, mental well-being is at an all-time low.
Physically we are inactive, with many of the activities we enjoy designed to capture our attention by keeping us still.
Gen Z spends a daily average of 6 hours and 5 minutes on their phone.
The average US adult spends 62.1 minutes a day watching Netflix.
Americans watch 2.7 hours of TV per day.
The solution to sedentariness seems simple enough—there are already so many fun activities that require movement.
Bike instead of binge!
Replace scrolling with walking!
Trade in 2k sports for IRL sports!
As I finish out this week’s piece, I’m realizing I haven’t stood up in hours since I started writing đŸ« â€¦whoops.
What I’m reading this week:
Outliving Your Peers Is Now a Competitive Sport, WSJ
Top FDA officials weighing regulation of ultra-processed foods, internal documents show, STAT
The Sad Future of Grocery Shopping, The Atlantic
AI-Driven Behavior Change Could Transform Health Care, Time
To Improve Health Care, Focus on Fixing Systems—Not People, Harvard Business Review