Sitting vs. Smoking: Which is Healthier?

 

 

Not Good For The Health

Hello everybody, this is Dr. Aaron Seaton with The Chiropractic Place.

Today's video is about sitting versus smoking.

There's a lot of evidence to suggest that sitting all day long, whether it's with work, is almost the equivalent of smoking with respect to cardiovascular health, which tells you that sitting a lot is not good for our heart.

It's not good for our health.

No. 1 Killer

So, if this is true, can you imagine if somebody sits and smokes, the increased cardiovascular risk for that person is tremendous?

And the reason I talk about this is that this is still the number one killer in our country - heart health, heart attacks, congestive heart failure, all of that lumped into one is hundreds and hundreds of thousands of deaths every year.

It's still the leading killer in our country.

So it's good for us to talk about our health because we want to have an approach, especially if you have a desk job that requires you to sit.

How Blood Flows?

So we're going to go over some basic stuff today, real simple, about how blood flow works.

Quite frankly, movement moves blood. Yes, our heart is a muscle, and it pumps and circulates blood throughout our body, but the muscles also push the blood that's in the veins back up to the heart, so if you sit and the muscles don't do that, the heart has to work a lot harder to move that blood.

What does that mean?

Your heart needs you to move to help it do its job; that's why people who exercise regularly, walk a lot, and move around tend to have lower blood pressure than people who don't.

It's because their body and the muscles are doing their part of the job; they're helping the veins, they're helping the blood move back up to the heart so that we can circulate properly, so hopefully that makes sense.

Movement moves blood, okay?

This is something I started doing back in college at my chiropractic college.

We had standing desks in the back row, and I got this thing right here called a wobbleboard.

I would stand on that while we were in class and take notes on my standing desk.

Now you can stand up, and that alone is a lot better than just sitting because you can move around, but I'm going to demo here.

I know you can't see it, but when standing on a wobbleboard, you also engage balance receptors and joints and muscles differently.

And this will actually, as silly as this might look or seem, standing on that wobble board will wake up your brain because a lot of times, if you're sitting all day, there's nothing for your brain to do.

Your brain loves movement.

About 90% of the stuff in your brain is related to sensory input from your body with respect to movement.

What does that tell you?

Your brain wants you to move, so if you ever fight it in the afternoon, if you have a desk job, you're like, "God, why am I so tired?"

It Is Important To Move

Try a sit-stand desk and try standing on one of these.

You'd be amazed at what it does to your mental alertness in the afternoon as well, not to mention it's helping the muscles, it's helping your joints, and your heart in circulating that blood.

So I repurchased it in college for $40 or $50.

You can find these on Amazon for about $25.

I've had this for 20 years, and it still works perfectly, so that's something to consider. If you get a sit-stand desk, you can have a wobbleboard.

And let's not forget the easiest one, too, start getting daily exercise, you need to move.

Remember, movement moves blood.

And if you want to improve your cardiovascular and overall health and well-being, we must move around.

I'm Dr. Aaron Seaton with The Chiropractic Place.

 

Call our office today to schedule an appointment to kickstart your healthy life: 530-221-8443

 

 

*The transcription is auto-generated by a program and may not be accurate. In order to ensure you get all the information from the video properly, you must watch the video.