Written by Kranti Kaur

Everyone has experienced the joy that comes with doing absolutely nothing: sitting on the couch, eating food, and watching a movie for the whole day. Although this experience is one that most people would love, it’s important to understand what a significantly negative effect a lifestyle like this could have on your heart health.

An inactive lifestyle can have a detrimental effect on the body. But what exactly is it? To put it simply, an inactive lifestyle is characterized by minimal exercise and a significant amount of time spent sitting or laying down. More specifically, a sedentary lifestyle that is medium risk involves sitting for 4-8 hours a day, while high risk is from 8-11 hours a day.  As the world has advanced, our lifestyles have become less active. As jobs become more sedentary, such as working a desk job, and the requirement for movement has decreased in our lives, it is becoming significantly easier to live an inactive lifestyle; with the increase in usage of applications like Doordash and Uber Eats, it requires nothing more than a tap on the phone to receive groceries and meals from favorite restaurants.

Cardiovascular issues, including strokes and heart attacks, are among the leading causes of death across the globe. Cardiometabolic diseases are a group of diseases including strokes, heart attacks, diabetes, and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. Some of the main causes of these diseases include activities such as smoking, alcohol consumption, and a lack of a healthy diet and exercise.

The effects of a sedentary lifestyle are quite significant: increased inflammation, hormonal imbalance, increased likelihood of weight gain, loss of muscle strength, and weaker bones, among other things. This, along with a lack of exercise, can also lead to the development of many detrimental diseases. These include obesity, high cholesterol, type II diabetes, heart diseases, and increased feelings of depression and anxiety. For example, by sitting for extended periods of time, the body slows down its metabolism, which contributes to the development of diabetes.  Hypertension can be caused by a sedentary lifestyle as well, as sitting can cause more rigid and narrow arteries, therefore requiring the heart to work significantly harder to carry out its duties.

It is now quite obvious that a sedentary lifestyle is not good for the mind or body. So, what’s the best way to prevent this lifestyle? Well, being active is a great start. It is not easy to switch from being completely inactive to active; the transition is the hardest part. However, according to research done at University College London, this transition can be very slight and still make significant differences in the body.

The research done at University College London states that “the minimal displacement of any behavior into moderate-vigorous physical activity for improved cardiometabolic health ranged from 3.8 to 12.7 min/day”. In other words, simply replacing a sedentary activity, like sitting or sleeping, with just about 3.8-12.7 mins of moderate to vigorous physical activity can have significant improvements in heart health.

Increasing movement not only contributes to a healthier heart, but also to greater mental well-being, stronger bones, healthy joints, effective circulation, increased physical strength, and more. Furthermore, it allows for increased productivity and prevents the development of detrimental diseases and ailments. Finding ways to decrease the amount of time spent sitting down reaps only benefits. Simply put, humans are not meant to have such sedentary lifestyles; our ancestors were highly active, spending significantly more time physically working and moving. Our bodies need the movement that we are lacking.

By replacing sedentary activities with activities that require more energy, we can take steps to increase our heart health. Replacing an elevator ride with using the stairs, or a sitting desk with a standing desk, or simply getting up and moving around a bit every hour would be easy and reasonable changes that can truly have a great impact on the heart. A day on the couch wouldn’t hurt, but a lifetime would.

Edited by Safa Fazili and Ambika Nair