Are you sitting down right now? Probably you do, because we spend a lot of our time sitting. Unfortunately this behavior can lead to various ailments. Luckily, you can prevent them easily with short but effective movement snacks. Here you can find another exciting article on the topic of back health.
Find out why prevention is important and how you can reduce your risk of illness in just 5 minutes.
In the past at school, nowadays in the office: We sit several hours a day and often without interruption. This behavior is called sedentariness. Especially our musculoskeletal system suffers from this. In addition to muscular tensions and stiff joints, one complaint in particular is widespread: In Germany every third person suffers from back pain. The pain can manifest itself and become chronic, so that it occurs even without an acute trigger and stays for a long time.
Sedentariness also increases the risk for other diseases. While sitting the metabolism slows down. This can lead to obesity, diabetes mellitus type 2 and to cardiovascular diseases such as high blood pressure or heart attacks. But there is also good news: The risk of all these health-damaging side effects can be reduced quite easily.
In our everyday lives we sit most of the time, so that we often remain in the same position for several hours. The long duration and missing breaks in which we stand up have a negative impact on our health. If you sit more than 4,5 hours a day you are not able to compensate for this with physical activity after work. More effective are little breaks in which you interrupt sitting, get up and move your body. So called movement snacks are important to mobilize your muscles over the day. A few minutes are enough to strengthen your body, get flexibility and new energy. Also your concentration will improve, as your cardiovascular system is activated and you can avoid the midday slump. We help you to find out how you integrate movement snacks into your day and enhance your performance.
It doesn’t take much to incorporate movement breaks into your daily routine. Only 5 Minutes per hour is enough, and if you even have less time – every minute spent in motion is better than nothing at all. In our Teamfit app you have the opportunity to mobilize your body with different movement snacks and exercises, depending on your needs and time. To avoid forgetting the motion breaks you can set a reminder on your phone or put an appointment in your calendar. Furthermore you can try to integrate movement in your daily life by taking the stairs instead of the elevator or walking around while talking on the phone.
Movement is the best counterpart to sedentary behavior. Even a short motion unit helps to avoid health issues and physical discomfort caused by a long time in a sitting position. Let’s go, stand up and do your first movement snack on a way to a healthy workday.