With the fast-paced world we live in, the development of technology has also evolved to aid our daily lives. However, this advancement has also caused people to become less active. Aside from those adults who have office-based jobs requiring them to spend long hours in front of their computer, many youths nowadays are also tied to their video games, watching television, and cellphone usage. Aside from this, the sedentary lifestyles of people are also influenced by some environmental factors such as lack of space or leisure facilities.
The growing number of inactive people worldwide over the years is a global health crisis due to the increasing number of reported chronic diseases, which are responsible for millions of deaths. While eating right is beneficial to the body, lack of regular physical exercise increases the risks of certain health problems.
Association of Sedentary Lifestyle to Biological Ageing
Living an inactive or sedentary lifestyle is known to be unhealthy and is one of the primary causes of certain diseases. But aside from that, many are not aware that it can also affect our biological age. While our age in years, known as chronological age, is constant as it increases each year, our biological age varies. This depends on how you keep your body to its optimum health, which is evaluated through a biological age test.
It is only right to allow your body to rest. Resting brings plenty of benefits to the body, such as getting energised again, reducing stress, increasing your immune health, having a better mental state, and other more positive effects. However, resting for too long and keeping inactive without enough physical activity isn’t beneficial as it can significantly damage your body on a cellular level.
A study about the effects of excessive sedentary behaviour suggests that physical inactivity decreases the telomere lengths of our white blood cells. Telomeres are the DNA-protein structures that are responsible for protecting our chromosomes, and their length can be a quantifiable measure in biological ageing and chronic disease development.
While telomere length naturally shortens with age, people who practise a sedentary lifestyle are suggested to be comparable to the telomere lengths of those who smoke the longer they remain inactive. Simply put, the cells of sedentary people appear much older than their actual age.
Diseases Related to Being Inactive
Cardiovascular Diseases
Performing regular exercise is an effective method to boost and improve your heart health. That is why being inactive can result in developing cardiovascular diseases. It may lead to fatty deposits in your arteries which can affect the oxygenation of your organs. Individuals who live a sedentary lifestyle have a greater risk of developing a group of heart and blood vessel disorders which can lead to heart attack and stroke.
Type 2 Diabetes
Although preventable, Type 2 Diabetes accounts for 90% of Diabetes cases. A sedentary lifestyle is considered one of the causes why it develops. When you are sitting for long periods, your metabolism decreases. This can affect the processing of lipids and glucose in your body, which results in insulin resistance leading to the development of this disease.
Obesity
Keeping active is one of the best ways to maintain your ideal body weight. However, physical inactivity is strongly associated with obesity. Being excessively sedentary means that the energy provided by the food you eat remains unused, which gets stored by the body as fat. But due to the body’s decreased ability to metabolise them, people who lack physical activity put on body weight resulting in excessive fat accumulation.
Osteoporosis
Lifestyle choices affect your bones significantly. To keep your bones healthy, regular physical activity doing weight-bearing exercises is a must to help them become stronger. Unfortunately, a sedentary lifestyle contributes to the thinning and weakening of bones resulting in osteoporosis. This causes an increased risk of having a fracture.
Cancer
Colorectal, breast and uterine cancer are some of the diseases that are linked to a sedentary lifestyle. According to the Cancer Center of Southern California, while the link between sedentary inactivity and the development of certain cancers is still unknown, experts believe that factors such as poor blood flow and high concentrations of insulin in the blood play a significant factor in cancer cell growth.
Mental Health Concerns
A sedentary lifestyle is also typically linked to increased feelings of depression and anxiety. The best way to battle these mental disorders is to perform healthy coping strategies such as physical activities or exercises to help improve the person’s mood. Not keeping busy with something leads to the worsening of mental symptoms.
How to Combat Sedentary Lifestyle
Make better lifestyle choices. Deciding to become healthy and keep active is an important starting point to avoid the many negative health implications a sedentary lifestyle brings. It would be best if you exert an effort to reduce the risks of these chronic diseases and be active regularly.
Exercising doesn’t have to be as intense as you picture it to be. For as long as you keep active at least 30 minutes daily, that would suffice rather than actively sitting or lying down.
You can do the following to combat a sedentary lifestyle:
- Get an active hobby like dancing.
- Do walking or running.
- Opt to use the stairs.
- Stand up or walk around every few minutes.
- Wash your car.
- Clean the house.
- Do some gardening.
You see, there is no specific exercise that you need to perform religiously in order to stay away from living a sedentary life. The key is to keep active and not sit for too long so your overall wellness won’t get compromised.
Take Away
Sedentary practices have been long attached to long-term biological consequences. Hence, it is essential that you exercise. Taking care of our overall wellness includes good nutrition and regular physical activity, as these two go hand-in-hand in keeping your health in check and also help reduce the risks of developing chronic illnesses.
To live a healthy life, make it a habit to exercise at least 30 minutes five times a week. Doing so not only avoids certain diseases, boosts your strength, and improves your muscles but also reduces some of the effects of ageing.
