Can Sitting For Too Long Cause Heart Pain?

Our current lifestyle is just too sedentary. Office work usually means sitting in your chair in front of a computer for hours on end and not getting enough physical activity. This is doing terrible things to your body, especially your heart. Sitting for long stretches is a risk factor for heart ailments. What is worse is that even if you exercise regularly, sitting for too long will still damage your heart.

A new adage says ‘sitting is the new smoking’, which means it is as harmful to your heart as smoking. Studies have proved that the longer you sit, the greater the possibility of an early death triggered by heart problems. The studies also found that people who sit still for 30 minutes at a stretch have 55% fewer chances of contracting heart ailments than those who sat for more than 30 minutes

Why does sitting hurt your heart?

A few things happen inside your body when you sit for too long, and that adversely affects your heart.

Sitting for protracted periods slows down your blood circulation, which means that fatty acids will accumulate in your blood vessels. This means your arterial walls will become narrow and hardened and limit the amount of blood that reaches your heart.

Sitting can also lead to the development of blood clots in your arteries (arterial thrombosis). This clot can clog your artery and prevent blood from reaching your heart. If the heart does not get the blood it needs, the muscles will start dying and this will initiate a heart attack.

When you sit for a long time, your body does not produce enough lipoprotein lipase – an enzyme that your body uses to break down fats. Without this enzyme, fats begin to build up in different parts of your body and eventually will usher in obesity, which is one of the most dangerous risk factors of heart diseases.

Studies have shown that sitting increases your insulin resistance and can cause Type 2 diabetes, yet another risk factor.

What should you do?

To avoid cardiovascular ailments, you have to move your body.

• Every half an hour stretch your legs a little

• Go out for a tiny walk during breaks and lunchtime

• Take the stairs whenever you can

Besides, there are plenty of exercises, which you can do at your desk such as leg raises, stretching, bottle weight lifting, table push-ups etc.

Sitting can be disastrous for your heart. However, this is an eventuality that you can avoid just by being wary of the dangers of sitting and distributing your time at the office with frequent physical activity.