The Dangers of Sitting on a Couch All Day Long

If you stay seated for more than 6-hours a day then you are officially a couch potato. The term might not suit you too well, because you could be sitting down for that long because of the nature of your work. Still, it doesn’t change the fact that your health is in danger.
Let’s learn more about the side effects of sitting down for too long and how dangerous it is for our health:

Frail Muscles

Sitting down for too long has a detrimental effect on our health. Our musculoskeletal system is affected when the lower part of our body suffers as a result of excessive sitting. This weakens our muscles over time, and we fail to partake in even nominal physical activity without feeling tired and exhausted.

Weight Gain

Sitting down for hours means a lack of exercise. Even with the best of diets, our calories need to go away, and that becomes impossible when we remain seated even right after a meal. All the calories have nowhere to go but accumulate in our body in the form of fat. Obesity itself puts our body at risk of a number of diseases.

Heart Diseases

People who sit for more hours are twice more likely to get heart diseases than those who don’t. As a result of sitting all day long, our body doesn’t get much of a chance to burn fat, leading to poor blood circulation. When the fat has nowhere to go, it reaches the arteries and blocks it severely.

Back and Neck Pain

A very common side effect of sitting for so long, and one that appears immediately, is the back and neck pain. The way we sit during work, with our heads jutted out towards our PCs, neck bent, and poor posture puts a strain on our cervical vertebrae. As a result, we suffer from sore shoulders, stiff neck, and back pain. Additionally, when we sit for too long, the disks in our spine that keep us upright begin to compress from the pressure of excessive sitting.

Never compromise when it comes to your health. No matter how busy you are, take out time to move your muscles and stretch a bit. You can hire a homecare specialist to help you maintain your life, and learn ways to keep yourself active.