Living a sedentary lifestyle comes naturally to most of us. We sit or lie down most of the day. From rising in the morning, to:
- Sitting down for breakfast
- Sitting in the commute to work
- Sitting at a desk at work
- Sitting for lunch
- Sitting in the commute back home from work
- Sitting for dinner at home
- Sitting in a night out
- Sitting in front of the TV until bedtime
- Back to bed
This creates many problems for your frame and organs due to reduced movement and activity. Having a regular exercise regimen does not neutralize the effect of sitting down all day.
Here are some of the signs which may indicate that you need to move more…
1) Constipation
When you move more, your colon moves more, and it’s easier to move your bowels on schedule. A healthy muscle tone in your abs and diaphragm is also key to moving waste through your digestive tract. Consistent exercise will help have a regular bowel movement, especially as you age.
2) Elevated blood pressure
Spending most of your time sitting raises your risk of heart disease. That’s partly because you’re more likely to have high blood pressure, a big risk factor for heart issues like coronary artery disease and heart attack.
Recent studies have shown that extended sitting during the day can increase blood pressure, which is a key risk factor for heart disease. The blood pressure tended to drop in the standing position compared with the sitting, supine and supine with crossed legs.
3) Shortness of breath
Just like biceps get weaker when you don’t use them, the muscles that help your lungs move air in and out as you breathe lose strength if you don’t work them out regularly through regular movement that increases your pulse rate. The less activity you do, the more breathless you get, even during easy daily tasks.
4) Stiff joints
Joint pain can sometimes be a sign of inflammatory conditions like arthritis or an autoimmune disease. But joints can also stiffen when you don’t use them enough. Limiting your movements can weaken muscles, compound joint trouble, and affect your posture, setting off a cascade of further problems. Beyond the benefits to your joints, becoming more active can help you stay independent long into your later years.
Putting your joints to work help you maintain pain-free freedom of movement well into your later years.
5) Insomnia
According to the sleep foundation; Exercising improves sleep for many people. Specifically, moderate-to-vigorous exercise can increase sleep quality for adults by reducing sleep onset – or the time it takes to fall asleep – and decrease the amount of time they lie awake in bed during the night.
Some forms of exercise, like running, boost serotonin (a hormone involved in the sleep-wake cycle), which may improve the brain’s ability to metabolize serotonin and regulate sleep.
A study found that exercise was just as effective as hypnotic drugs in relieving insomnia. When you keep a regular exercise routine, you fall asleep faster, and you sleep deeper once you drift off.
6) Moodiness
A lack of movement can affect your mood. It can also increase feelings of anxiety and depression. Exercise helps chronic depression by increasing serotonin (which helps your brain regulate mood, sleep and appetite) or brain-derived neurotrophic factor (which helps neurons to grow). Exercise reduces immune system chemicals that can make depression worse.
Exercising regularly is one of the easiest and most effective ways to reduce the symptoms of ADHD and improve concentration, motivation, memory, and mood.
Cardio exercises like walking, biking, swimming, or running, will boost and steady your mood, and even improve your self-esteem.
7) Low energy
Sitting down most of the time can make you feel sluggish and tired most of the time, as not much oxygen is being delivered to your cell tissues. Exercise helps deliver oxygen and nutrients to your tissues. Even a 15-minute walk can give you an energy boost, and the benefits increase with more frequent physical activity.
If you spend most of your time sitting, they aren’t getting the same amount of fuel they need to keep you going.
8) Back pain
When your core muscles are weak from lack of use, they can’t support your back the way they should. This makes it much easier to tweak your back muscles during everyday movements like standing or reaching.
Exercising the back reduces stiffness by keeping the connective fibres of ligaments and tendons flexible. Improved mobility through back exercise helps to prevent the connective fibres from tearing under stress, which in turn prevents injury and back pain.
Pilates, yoga and other exercises that use stretching are good for building a stronger back.
9) Forgetfulness
Your brain functions become degraded due to the reduction of blood flow to the brain. Regular exercise tells your body to make more chemicals called growth factors. They boost blood vessel production in your brain. The more blood that gets to your brain, the better you can think, remember, and make decisions.
In a study done at the University of British Columbia, researchers found that regular aerobic exercise, the kind that gets your heart and your sweat glands pumping, appears to boost the size of the hippocampus, the brain area involved in verbal memory and learning.
Exercise helps memory and thinking through both direct and indirect means. The benefits of exercise come directly from its ability to reduce insulin resistance, reduce inflammation, and stimulate the release of growth factors—chemicals in the brain that affect the health of brain cells, the growth of new blood vessels in the brain, and even the abundance and survival of new brain cells.
Indirectly, exercise improves mood and sleep and reduces stress and anxiety. Problems in these areas frequently cause or contribute to cognitive impairment.
10) Snacking
Aerobic exercise like biking, swimming, walking, and running can decrease your appetite because it changes the levels of certain “hunger hormones” in your body.
Studies have now shown that aerobic exercise — such as running, cycling, and swimming —decreases appetite by changing the levels of hormones that drive our state of hunger.
11) Frequent sickness
Studies show the more moderate activity you get, the lower your chance of catching cold or other germs. Physical activity may help flush bacteria out of the lungs and airways. This may reduce your chance of getting a cold, flu, or other illness.
Exercise causes a change in antibodies and white blood cells (WBC). WBCs are the body’s immune system cells that fight disease. These antibodies or WBCs circulate more rapidly, so they could detect illnesses earlier than they might have before.
The brief rise in body temperature during and right after exercise may prevent bacteria from growing. This temperature rise may help the body fight infection better.
Exercise slows down the release of stress hormones. Some stress increases the chance of illness. Lower stress hormones may protect against illness.
When you make exercise a habit, your immune system gets stronger.
12) Dull skin
If your skin looks duller than usual, a lack of movement may be to blame. Some studies show that moderate exercise boosts your circulation and your immune system, which helps your skin keep that youthful glow.
Aerobic exercise makes you sweat and promotes the removal of toxins through perspiration. Working out tones the skin improves blood circulation and oxygenation to the skin and so imparts a healthy glow. It also opens up our sweat glands and flushes out dirt.