How much time do you spend sitting? Have you ever measured it? Your total average sitting time throughout each day may just surprise you.

No matter how old you are, certain basic facts about your body are always true. Whether you’re a 70-year-old using a cane or a 20-year-old Olympic athlete, your body will adapt to whatever you do with it. If you spend most of your day sitting without moving, your body will become stiff. It will be uncomfortable to move.

Now, it’s true that a 70-year-old (or 50- or 60-year-old) isn’t going to move like an Olympic athlete. However, another true fact is that anyone middle aged or older who spends a good portion of their day moving around — walking, climbing a few stairs, even repeatedly bending and straightening major joints in the arms and legs while sitting — will reap amazing benefits.

For example: Your sense of balance is something that comes from actual practice. As you move your body in different positions, you literally “learn” which way is up in a process called “proprioception.” It’s how the body senses the effects of gravity; so you “sense” how far to move your foot to step up from the street to a sidewalk curb, how to stay upright and where to move your hand when you bend over to pick something up from the floor. Frequent movement will keep your sense of balance sharp, helping to prevent the life-altering falls that are the biggest cause of death and disability to those over the age of 65.

If you’re sedentary and spent most of the day on the couch or in front of a TV or computer, all your muscle fibers and the connective tissue that holds your body together will contract. The fibers get stiffer and less flexible. Your body adapts to this and thus produces less and less of its natural lubricating substances. Your tissues — muscles and all — become dry, shortened and inflexible, much more likely to tear. Lack of movement also lowers the blood supply in the bones (yes, living bone DOES have a blood supply). With a lowered blood supply, bones become brittle and more fragile.

You can’t blame all of this on age. It’s the way the body adapts to sitting around without being moved. It would even happen to a 20-year-old Olympic athlete who sat around without moving (though perhaps not as much and not as quickly as it does to those middle aged and older).

It’s easy to prevent this adaptation that in so many of us, masquerades as the aging process. First, carry a stopwatch. Every time you sit down, whether it’s to watch a show, use the computer, eat, drive a car or get work done at a desk, measure the time. Do this for three or four days, so you have an average for the daily time you spend sitting.

Next, figure out a way to replace a half hour of sitting time with a half hour of movement — a walk around the block, a session of bowling or another activity. Then plan two minutes of active movement during every half hour of sitting. You can walk around your living room or go outside and walk around your yard. Do this every day. You may wish to use two stop watches to keep track of both the time you spend moving and the time you spend sitting.

Keep working on creating more balance between the two, and you’ll be amazed at the difference it makes in your quality of life, keeping you younger as the years go by.

By Wina Sturgeon

Adventure Sports Weekly (adventuresportsweekly.com)