I have big news. Are you sitting down?
Here’s the news: You’d better stand up.
A recent study declared that people who spend much of their time sitting have a higher incidence of disease than those who don't sit much. Another study from the American Cancer Society found that people who spend more time sitting have a higher risk of death, despite their overall activity level. Women who sat for more than six hours per day were 37% more likely to die, and men who sat for more than six hours per day were 18% more likely to die than those who sat for fewer than three hours per day. Yet another study suggests that sitting down for extended periods of time is just as dangerous as smoking.
But that’s not the worst of it. Here’s the really, REALLY bad news…
Several studies have shown that the more television you watch, the more likely you are to be at risk for serious disease.
One study showed that people who watched four hours or more of television per day were 80% more likely to die from heart disease and 46% more likely to die from any cause than people who watched less than two hours of tv per day. Another study shows that a person should watch NO MORE THAN 30 hours of television per month for optimal health.
For real? 30 hours per month? That's barely one show a day! What about all those Buffy the Vampire Slayer marathons I’ve been doing lately? No wonder I lost my mojo… and no wonder Buffy still has hers. She gets a lot of cardio downing demons and annihilating the underworld. All I do is sit on the couch and watch. The only time my heart rate goes up is when Spike takes his shirt off.
It's not just Buffy. TV is my "Hey, I'm always here for, day or night" friend; my "I don't care if you're wearing sweats from 1982" friend; my "I'm so talented I can both entertain AND inform you" friend. TV is my constant companion and my brainless buddy. TV lets me shut the real world out when the real world gets a little too... real. But alas, it seems too much TV has been slowly squashing my sparkle.
Truth be told, TV isn't the biggest culprit behind the dreaded spread. Most of us spend the majority of our day sitting behind our desks or in front of our computers. Let’s not discuss how many hours per day I spend working, and therefore sitting, at my desk. (Really, let’s not discuss it. It’s depressing, and besides, it's a topic for another post.)
So here is our mission of the week, my newly-perky pals: We're not going to become a sitting statistic! We’re going to move. We're going to get up and go. We’re going to shake our groove-thing every chance we get. At the very minimum, we will:
Get intentional exercise for 30 minutes each day this week. And by intentional, I mean, we put on our work-out clothes and purposely find a way to sweat. You could go hiking, running, walking, or, if you live somewhere without a foot of snow on the ground, go cycling or kayaking. If you’re not up for braving the weather, then hit the gym for a spin class, a Zumba class, or a jaunt on the treadmill. No gym membership? No worries. Turn on your ipad and tune in to your inner rock star. Dance, sing, jump around your living room like a lunatic. Just make sure you don’t scare your kids. And make sure you do it for at least half an hour.
Get unintentional exercise, too. Remember those studies? They say it’s bad to sit for several hours per day, even if you get regular exercise. That means we have to get up and groove as much as we can during the day. We’re going to take a break from our computers every hour or so. We’ll use the bathroom upstairs just to have an excuse to climb stairs, we’ll skip to the mailbox, we'll do leg lifts while on conference calls, we'll actually walk outside with the dog (instead of standing in the doorway waiting for it to do its business) and we’ll find the farthest parking spot possible when we run our errands.
We. Will. Not. Watch. Too. Much. Television. Damn. That was even hard to write. I admit it. I’m a tv junkie. You know there’s nothing I like more than sitting down on the couch with a cup of coffee in one hand and the remote control in the other. But apparently, too much television is mojo minimizing, so I’m going to limit the tube to one hour per day, for the sake of my sprightliness. How about you?
Fill me in on your progress this week! I can’t wait to hear about how you’re (literally) moving toward your mojo.
Sixteen years ago we removed the TV from our living room to the family room. I never liked it's distractions or competition over the company of family and friends. Over 2 years ago we disconnected any cable or satellite we had. It was going to save us a chunk of change and we really only watched TV late at night in our room anyway. It took awhile for Tom to get over his sports TV withdrawal, or at least he is just being a good sport about it all, but we actually had more time to enjoy each others company and there were more Scrabble games for me to beat him at!:) Then it happened, I got a laptop and my nephew introduced me to FREE Online TV!! Who needs cable or satellite, there's HULU and let's not forget NETFLIX! We haven't played Scrabble in many months or anything else for that matter! TV is like a drug we become addicted to. It helps us decompress after a long day of work and tune out whatever is whirling around our brains, then we fall asleep to begin all over again! And like any addiction, you'll find a way to satisfy it!
ReplyDeleteI of all people should know better. I worked hard to lose 135 pounds. I understand the importance of good nutrition AND exercise and remember when I was practicing this daily just how energized, confident and empowered I felt. Where did my mojo go? I buried it under a pile of excuses and laziness and now it is time to dig out from under that pile and feel good again! This is the perfect time for this Blog Ronni! Thanks! I know together with the support and encouragement of each one of the "bloggers" on here we'll be the Superstars of MOJO!