Last weekend we were blessed with a couple of “bonus days”. Abundant sunshine, warm enough to be comfortable, a light breeze and fresh air.

I just couldn’t get enough of it. Winter will be here before we know it, along with longer periods indoors. I needed to “tank up” on the great outdoors. A couple of long walks, some good company for conversation, nice deep breaths, and I felt restored.

It was perfect!

Was it a good health practice? Sure. More about that later.

I simply love to walk!

Perhaps this rubbed off from my New England Grandmother who lived to the tender age of almost 96 was a big proponent of traveling by “Shank’s mare” whenever you could. She was a wise woman.

Growing up in New York City, we did lots and lots of walking. Having a car wasn’t necessarily an advantage. I got used to hoofing it around the town, and loved getting up close and personal with my world, rather than whizzing by at 60 mph.

Despite the well documented benefits of walking we are doing less and less of it. As a society we sit more than we do anything else. We sit in our cars, we sit at work ( slightly more than 9 hours a day), we sit to read, to work at the computer, we sit in the movies and watching TV. The list is endless. We even sit more than we sleep.

Physically, if we sit for longer than an hour the enzymes that burn fat decrease by more than 90%. Good cholesterol levels decrease and the bad stuff increases. We gain weight with all the associated problems related to heart disease, diabetes, certain cancers, and early death.

Some have even offered that “Sitting is the new smoking”. This from an article by Nilofer Merchant in the Harvard Business Review:

“Research shows that this lack of physical activity is directly tied to 6% of the impact for heart diseases, 7% for type 2 diabetes, and 10% for breast cancer, or colon cancer. You might already know that the death rate associated with obesity in the US is now 35 million. “But do you know what it is in relationship to Tobacco? Just 3.5 million. The New York Times reported on another study, published last year in the journal Circulation that looked at nearly 9,000 Australians and found that for each additional hour of television a person sat and watched per day, the risk of dying rose by 11%. In that article, a doctor is quoted as saying that excessive sitting, which he defines as nine hours a day, is a lethal activity.”

Bothered by the pain and stiffness of Osteoarthritis? Researchers at Northwestern University in Chicago think you should “walk it off”. They found that for every 1000 steps you take, you can increase mobility and decrease pain by some 18%.

Even if you aren’t much of a walker, simply by spending more time on your feet, just standing, you can improve your health.

Research in the British Journal of Sports Medicine reported that the less we sit the longer our telomeres.

What are telomeres, and why should we care about them you may well ask?

Well, they are little caps of DNA and protein that sit on the end of a chromosome and help prevent damage which occurs during cell division. The shorter our telomeres the greater incidence of diseases related to aging such as heart disease, cancer, diabetes,elevated triglycerides, strokes and obesity.

Interestingly a period of exercise is not enough to offset the bad effects of prolonged sitting. We just need to stand more and sit less.

Because many of us spend so many hours seated in the workplace, I thought these suggestions offered in another blog might be useful to bring a little more movement into a sedentary day:

1. Maintain proper posture: Here are the top three ways to keep your posture in check: When sitting, keep the soles of your feet flat on the floor, avoid high-heels since they alter your center of gravity, and simply keep the the ears, shoulders and hips in alignment . Whether you’re standing or sitting keep these in a vertical line to improve your posture.

. Keep moving : you have to stand and walk at regular intervals

: you have to stand and walk at regular intervals Get confident: confidence is directly proportional to posture: posture affects confidence and emotions, and your emotions affect your posture. 2. Keep an arsenal of stretches you can do while sitting. This is a great way to relieve stress and get a boost of energy! Below are a few of my favorite, but for more you can visit this page from webMD. Do leg extensions — work the abs and legs

Stretch your back and shoulders with a “leg hug”

Release the upper body with a torso twist

Stretch your arms over your head and reach for the sky, hold for 10 seconds, and then extend the right hand higher, then the left. 3. Become fanatical about walking. Take just 10 minutes at the top of every hour to stand and walk and instead of emailing your coworker at the end of the hall, take a walk over instead. 4. Don’t have 10 minutes per hour to get up and move? Try some of these 60-second exercises: Run in place for 60-seconds, and get those knees up!

Find a vacant room and do walk-lunges or jumping-jacks.

Find some stairs and walk up fast, going up two at a time even to get your heart pumping. Do this at the top of every hour. 5. Acquire an elastic band and do these exercises: Wrist Extension (see video here)

Seated Row (see video here) : this exercise can also help your posture since it works the upper back muscles.

: this exercise can also help your posture since it works the upper back muscles. Seated Obliques (see video here): this is an abdominal exercise that works the internal obliques. 6. Take the stairs versus taking the elevator always. 7. Park farther away 8. Use your lunch break to take a walk/run 9. Drink plenty of water…you might take more trips to the bathroom, but that will just get you the opportunity to walk more, and stretch! 10. Trade your office chair for a fitness ball! This will allow you to tone your core muscles (which also is a way to correct poor posture) while sitting at your desk. You can also use the fitness ball for many other exercises. See this page from MayoClinic.

Good suggestions all!

So get up and lengthen those telomeres!

Peace – Judi England, RN, LMT, Kripalu Yoga Instructor- yogajudi@aol.com – 3/17/2014