I work remotely 80-90 hours a week using my laptop (this is important: your screen needs to be mobile). Here's how I currently try to keep my body moving:
- I don't have a desk or chair. I have a bar table and a stool. This makes a huge difference. I get uncomfortable sitting on the stool after about 30 minutes, so I get off. Then I'll stand at the bar table and work for an hour or two. When I get tired of that, I'll spend a minute or two doing a physical activity (see below).
- I try to work from different physical places, e.g., cafes, different places in the house when nobody is home, the steps outside, the floor, the hammock hanging by the lake. I make it a game to come up with new and novel places to work from that don't require a lot of travel time (unless I'm walking—then it's well-spent travel time), anything to change the physical position of my body while working (and hopefully something that gets uncomfortable within an hour so I'm pushed to change again).
- I have a sandbag next to the bar table that I'll pick up at random times throughout the day and do squats, deadlifts, bent-over rows, or just carry the 60lb thing up the stairs or out around the yard once. I'll also use it as a weight to hold my feet while I do sit-ups. I have a pull-up bar hanging between two trees outside.
- I don't watch TV. In fact, I try to avoid anything that involves the sitting position. If I have to sit, I prefer the floor, or if I'm watching a movie or reading a book, I prefer laying down. If it's something for a few minutes and I can stand, I'll stand.
I've been doing this for about a year now and it's the best I've ever felt while working this much. What I'd like to start mixing in are some runs or long walks, but right now it's a choice between those or getting sufficient sleep. I prioritize sleep.
I love my work, and doing something 80-90 hours a week that I love hardly seems like a problem. :-) I work 7 days a week, so it works out to around 12 hours a day. That gives me 4 hours of 'other' time if I sleep 8 hours a night.
My point is that unless we come up with some concrete definition of what "work" is, it's rather pointless to talk about its effects. A weight lifter might refer to 'work' as exercising. A truck driver might refer to 'work' as driving a truck. Those two forms of 'work' have a much different affect on your health.
>> Why are some people always suspicious of others who work a lot ?
Sometimes it's bragging. Sometimes it's somewhat delusional. A lot of folks who say they work that long don't really.
To be forced to do that much is awful, to do it voluntarily is probably obsessive.
We absolutely do not want that to become 'normal' or accepted. As others have mentioned, our forebears fought very hard to get the right to a family life, the right to time away from the grind. We shouldn't give it up so easily.
Working 16+ hour days is not sustainable in the long term and is counter productive. Usually when people say they work "80-90 hours a week" I take it with a grain of salt.
Working 80-90 hours a week remotely with the freedom to work from an environment that you find relaxing is a lot different than working 80-90 hours a week in an office or dealing every day with the stresses of traffic and commuting. Yesterday I was laying in a hammock feeling the breeze come in off the lake and listening to the birds while working on my laptop. I couldn't work 80-90 hours a week if I didn't have the ability to look up from my laptop and instantly feel relaxed.
It's something that one can do at certain times in one's life, in certain circumstances. There was a period in my life when I worked eight hours in the office, commuted nearly an hour each way, had dinner, worked another four hours at home and did this for months on end.
Not 80 hours but about 60 which in my opinion is still far too much in the long run.
It was worth it for the results but I wouldn't, and quite possibly couldn't, do it now thirty years later.
So it's not necessarily a problem unless it becomes an uncontrollable obsession or is forced on one.
I think he might be counting his exercise time in that and working 7 days a week. 11 hour work day with a total of 2-4 hours of breaks interspersed sounds about OK.
The mobility they afford easily makes up for any negative effects. I couldn't imagine working from a fixed computer. I even tried putting my laptop on a stand and using an external keyboard—it lasted a few days before I just got so annoyed by the fixed position. I sit facing different directions at my circle bar table, shifting my position multiple times throughout the day, so having a laptop that I can simply adjust as I adjust makes a lot more sense for me.
Wireless keyboard and mouse combined with putting the screen at eye level can solve these things. They give a range of motion and posture not available with the laptop itself.
Then again, I'm sitting on a computer with a wireless keyboard and mouse, in my living room chair, for many of the same reasons.
That's still not good enough because you will either have chipmunk arms (i.e. hands at chin level) or will have to bend forward to look at the screen.
There is a good selection of tenkeyless keyboards available that will fit in your laptop bag (get one with a microusb port rather than a fixed cable, as strain relief for a fixed-cable that's getting shoved in a bag is challenging).
Then you just elevate your laptop (stack it on books, bags, whatever you have handy; I keep a few textbooks on my desk at home for this) and put the keyboard on your lap if sitting, or bar if standing. I wouldn't call it perfect, but it's mobile, affordable, and way better than a laptop alone IMO.
>Get a proper laptop with fullsize keys and a large enough screen to work on.
No laptop in existence has a keyboard big enough for me. The smallest external keyboards I've used are probably larger than the largest laptop keyboards.
It's not about the size of the keys. It's about the location with respect to your shoulders. Having to angle your arms inwards is not a good idea.
Same for screen. If you're looking downwards, it's bad for your neck. Which is why I always use an external monitor.
If you decide you want a comfortable chair for your 30 minutess of sitting, looking into drafting chairs. They're basically office chairs with the height of a bar stool.
getting uncomfortable within an hour sounds like a lot of interruption and overhead during a full day. I try to concentrate my activity: cycling to and from work, 1 hour workout 3 times a week before or after work. During the day i sit a lot though, but i try to stand whenever i can (meetings, coworker conversations, drinking a lot of water to have to go to the bathroom every 2 hours helps too ;)
As a 3-4l of water/day type of person I have first hand encountered the lack of salt (cramps while I sleep) and also the solution: add salt to your diet. I makes the food taste nice to boot!
That's pretty rare in the modern world - most people chronically consume too much salt.
This recent (Apr 2017) interview[0] with Prof. Graham MacGregor[1] is really interesting on the topic of salt consumption. He says most people need add no extra salt to their food, relying instead on the small, naturally occurring amounts in the things we eat. I've done exactly this and noticed no ill effects (cramps, etc.).
oooh, I wonder if that's why I sometimes get cramps while I sleep. I feel like if I stretch my legs too much while in bed, I could randomly get a cramp.
Though the headline does not say so, I presume that this 'toll' is only contributed to by the prolonged sitting; the "binge TV-viewing" presumably is only harmful to "ability to walk" inasmuch as it is correlated with an increased amount of prolonged sitting.
One assumes that binge tv-viewing would take no toll on ability to walk (or even be beneficial to it) if one was walking on a treadmill whilst watching television?
TV has the same if not better benefit - it's probably just less frequently utilized. I'm sure I watch more TV than the average American (which is saying a lot) with a screen in all of the major rooms in my apartment. But 50-75% of the time that I'm watching, I'm cleaning, preparing meals, etc.
It depends on what folks are binge watching. My only gripe with living in the 'Golden Age of Television' is that the shows are too good, contain too much depth, and warrant 100% attention to lest you miss its subtleties.
I beg to differ. I've been far more addicted to a good page turner book than I've ever been addicted to a TV show. And when I finally put the book down 10hrs later I can barely focus on anything further away than 20-30cm. With TV I can also do other things not give it my full attention by checking email or browsing the web but I can't do that with a book
I really envy your ability to get hypnotized by a book, and I've heard others have similar binge reading sessions quite frequently. I love reading. I read every morning and night, but I can only read for about an hour at a time. I do read mainly non-fiction, and I'm wondering if that has anything to do with it. However, I'm drawn towards non-fiction more, so wouldn't I prefer longer reading sessions for the books I'm interested in the most?
I read non-fiction and fiction books in similar amounts, but only the latter trigger binge sessions for me. With non-fiction, my brain usually gets tired after an hour or so, and I feel an urge to take a break. But with good fiction books, I frequently ended up reading an entire series of books over a week, with the only breaks being sleep, food prep, hygiene and the dayjob. Those sessions were more intense than binging TV series, which is something I am prone to do too.
I enjoy both quite a bit, and I wouldn't find it implausible that it's easier to get lost in fiction than nonfiction, even if you prefer the latter. I feel like when I read nonfiction, I generally like time away from the book to digest it, compare the new models I'm forming with existing ones that I have, integrate external information into the stuff I'm learning about (e.g. by Googling or talking to friends).
With certain kinds of fiction, I'm much more able to get completely lost in the world created to the point that I lose track of what's going on around me.
I haven't read the full text to see how they parse it out in either the rationale or the analysis, but it might be related to the fact that a lot of studies on the effects of sitting actually use data about TV watching. This study might have asked about them separately to gauge the correlation between the two, or just to provide a basis for direct comparison to the TV-based studies.
As my wife (an ER nurse) says: "Motion is the lotion"...
But seriously: Keep moving folks! Immobility is a co-morbidity with so many other illnesses. Find something you love to do that makes you move and keep at it!
How much of those steps are real, physical exercise? This is the biggest problem in American culture. No one actually exerts themselves physically. Take a look at the legs of a Dutch grandmother. Rippling with muscle because they bike every day, everywhere.
>> "When you have your own business, you have a little more flexibility," she says. "But I'll tell you one thing that's constant — that's eight hours, at least, of looking at the screen and sitting in the chair." <<
Above quote is from the case study at the end of the article. Just wondering about tablets/phones and moving people away from the PC with screen.
Anecdotal Observation 1: My daily journey involves a local train ride from a large main station. The inquiry staff no longer sit at desks in a counter/office. They have 'stands' around the concourse and use tablets to query the national timetable system. The same people help with the barriers when there are problems &c. They are moving most of the day.
Anecdotal Observation 2: Teaching: this time of year we are advising and assessing large numbers of prospective students. Used to be rows of PCs/monitors. Now again, tablets in use and colleagues just use their phones. Far more mobile and a lot less queuing up to see people &c.
Just wondering about 'business logic' applications on a tablet? Just do your stuff while walking about?
There is a significant standing up hazard for women: heels.
Heels long time use will deform your spine, your knee, changes the muscles that are responsible for walking, and is responsible of more ankle sprains than anything else.
According to this article, the study found those who watch 5 or more hours of TV a day while sitting were 65% more likely to lose mobility in the period tested than those who watch < 2 hours per day, controlling for all other variables. I am skeptical the study was able to control for all other variables. Maybe those who watch 5 or more hours of TV a day are less likely to get activity during the day e.g. from taking the stairs, making dinner, chores, etc. To be frank, these sound like exceptionally lazy humans. They may be less likely to cook for themselves and eat healthy meals, or to take good care of themselves in other ways also. It's hard to control a study like this for all possible complicating factors. What is clear is that if you're sitting and watching TV with all your free time instead of being active, that's probably not healthy, but hey, it's your life.
> crash into your recliner for another three to four hours,
Sure it's lazy, but I'm asking myself how it's even possible. If you work full time as in the example, how do you even squeeze in that much TV watching between family and various chores.
The study population was 50-71 years old - for most people, those are empty nest years (no kids in the house), and far less likely to be doing unpaid overtime to try to advance a career.
Even though I sit all day and most of the evening, my 40 minute commute is mostly standing and walking, and I get up every half an hour or so to make a cup of tea, or to stretch, or so look out of the window for a minute (it helps my eyes...)
Yes, numerous studies have shown that workouts don't reverse the negative health consequences of sitting. That being said, such workouts can definitely help avoid (or at least reduce) other issues such as pain, e.g., by strengthening glutes that are weakened by sitting, etc.
It's not the sitting itself that is harmful, rather the host of tissue impingements and unfavourable biases in your musculature caused by sitting, or wearing shoes with elevated heels, etc.
Such issues cause us to compensate by adopting a different posture; one that will allow us to perform a desired movement now, but in the long run we suffer the consequences of this maladaptation.
An oft-cited example of a harmful adaptation is the proliferation of "heel-striking" running technique, which is a consequence of many people having poor ankle mobility (thanks, Nike).
To combat this, we can first establish what an ideal posture should be for a given movement, perform that movement under resistance, and use it to expose the areas in which we have a structural problem.
We then use that information to target problem areas (e.g. stiff hamstrings, shortened heel-cord, etc) with myofascial release and stretching.
Make mobility work a part of every workout you do (15-20 mins a day): use foam rollers/lacrosses balls to remove knots; use "banded distraction" to open up stiff joints. In my experience and anecdotally, such effort yields excellent results for pain-relief and improved posture.
I highly recommend Kelly Starlett's book "How to Become a Supple Leopard" and Steve Maxwell's mobility programs.
I attribute this to most of my lifting injuries. Unscientifically it strikes me as patently unhealthy to go from one extreme to the other without a long warm up period.
I once went on vacation for two weeks where I spent the entire day watching TV. I watched more than 26 episodes of TV shows every day from 8AM to 11PM. I could marathon through short shows within a day. I never regretted anything other than poor streaming quality.
I never felt lonely because of the magic of the internet allowing me to watch movies and TV shows with internet strangers as if it were movie night, the entire day, everyday.
I regret nothing, except maybe the streaming quality and not making my own clone of that proprietary service (rabb.it).
I don't know how obvious that is a priori. If you asked a subsistence laborer what the effects of sitting all day would have on their health you might get a different answer.
Indeed, doing physical labor all day is also quite terrible for you. My godfather was a farmer in rural Mexico and by his 50s his body was in pretty bad shape.
And that's why your pension was set at 60 or 65, and why developed countries are having a hard time paying for them. In the past physical work meant that by the time people were old enough to collect their pension they were worn out.
It sounds obvious but certain countries seem to need the hot coffee warning. A UK friend messaged me from Disneyland Florida yesterday with message 'Its unbelievable the amount of people in electric buggies, its almost as if 25% of population have given up on idea of walking'.
To be clear, the hot coffee warning is there because a particular McDonald's franchisee elected to keep their coffee at boiling levels and then serve it to unsuspecting customers at the drive-thru. This practice resulted in extremely serious burns to the genitals of the woman who famously sued.
I take your larger point, but I feel your example is one better suited to Seinfeld or a comedy act.
One of the most misunderstood cases in american history and the misunderstanding means that many states created laws to limit exposure which IMO is extremely bad for the average american.
In my experience a large percentage of people that are fat are in a scooter and most of the older people are either on a scooter or in a wheelchair. It definitely makes one deja vu to WALL-E. If everyone was in a scooter they would have to limit admissions even more, it's built to accommodate scooters but not for everyone to be in a scooter, yet. The fireworks show would be a total traffic jam without the mobility of walking. I used a fitness tracker last time I went and a full day at Disneyland/California was about 16 miles of walking.
No, not ad hominem because I'm not rebutting OP's argument, only expressing my distaste the sentiment.
It's such a casually nasty thing to say, "We ought to make (easily identifiable group X) (do something obnoxious/humiliating, not to mention impractical)," that I don't like to let it pass.
Great movie. Luckily, someone has made a correlation between sitting on your arse in front of TV all night and ones future mobility, what a long shot hypothesis, we could be saved...
- I don't have a desk or chair. I have a bar table and a stool. This makes a huge difference. I get uncomfortable sitting on the stool after about 30 minutes, so I get off. Then I'll stand at the bar table and work for an hour or two. When I get tired of that, I'll spend a minute or two doing a physical activity (see below).
- I try to work from different physical places, e.g., cafes, different places in the house when nobody is home, the steps outside, the floor, the hammock hanging by the lake. I make it a game to come up with new and novel places to work from that don't require a lot of travel time (unless I'm walking—then it's well-spent travel time), anything to change the physical position of my body while working (and hopefully something that gets uncomfortable within an hour so I'm pushed to change again).
- I have a sandbag next to the bar table that I'll pick up at random times throughout the day and do squats, deadlifts, bent-over rows, or just carry the 60lb thing up the stairs or out around the yard once. I'll also use it as a weight to hold my feet while I do sit-ups. I have a pull-up bar hanging between two trees outside.
- I don't watch TV. In fact, I try to avoid anything that involves the sitting position. If I have to sit, I prefer the floor, or if I'm watching a movie or reading a book, I prefer laying down. If it's something for a few minutes and I can stand, I'll stand.
I've been doing this for about a year now and it's the best I've ever felt while working this much. What I'd like to start mixing in are some runs or long walks, but right now it's a choice between those or getting sufficient sleep. I prioritize sleep.