Friends, countrymen and fellow workers chained to their desks, there may be good news for our sedentary bodies. Just one hour of not sitting on your ass can keep the doctor away but, you know, apples are still cool too.
A new study published in Mayo Clinic Proceedings claims that just 60 minutes of doing anything but sitting (don’t take my words literally here) can offset the negative effects of sitting on your bum doing a bunch of nothing for six-eight hours straight, also known as “working.” According to Time, the Center for Disease Control and the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey did a health study with 2,223 participants between 12-49. Each person wore an accelerometer for one week to track their activity and sedentary patterns. Surprise, sitting was tracked with lower heart fitness but it also found that just standing faired better heart-wise.
“Even people who exercise regularly spend the vast majority of their time not exercising,” says Dr. Jarett Berry at UT Southwestern Medical Center. “And it appears that what we do when we’re not exercising is relevant to our health. Understanding this has the ability to shift the paradigm of thinking about exercise more dramatically than anything else in the field of exercise.”
So, you know, move.
Image via Getty.