Sitting or lying down: Which is worse for your health?

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Sitting is the new smoking, they say, and rightly so.

Hours of inactivity not just leads to unhealthy weight gain but can also wreak havoc with other aspects of your health.

To avoid too much sitting, is lying down better than just staying glued to your desk? Some couch potatoes may wonder if lying down may lessen ill effects of excessive sitting.

When it comes to determining which is worse for your health – sitting or lying down, here’s what you need to know.

Experts discourage both sitting or reclining or lying down as both of these are sedentary behaviour which can be detrimental for health in the long run. Both are associated with low levels of energy expenditure. Sitting, reclining or lying down, are all examples of sedentary behaviour, according to the 2018 Physical Activity guidelines.

Why sitting or lying down can work against us

When we are sitting or lying down, we are not using our legs and backside which have some of the largest muscles in our body which contract when we are upright and which is important for various processes in the body which affect blood sugar, cholesterol levels and other metabolic processes.

When we are sitting in a chair or reclining on a sofa or bed, the blood sugar can spike and bad cholesterol can rise.

In a study co-authored by John P. Thyfault, an associate professor of molecular and integrative physiology at the University of Kansas Medical Center in Kansas City, healthy young men were asked to make themselves sedentary with inactivity of their choice – driving to work, reading more in bed, sitting in front of the television for hours etc.

In the study it was found that within two weeks of being more sedentary, these healthy individuals began to develop metabolic issues, which included serious insulin resistance, whether they had spent their inactive time primarily sitting or in bed.

Ill effects of too much sitting

Sitting for extended periods is linked to higher risk of all time mortality. Research shows it slows blood circulation, and increase the chances of heart attack and other cardiovascular disease including conditions such as deep vein thrombosis.

Long hours of sitting can also lead to poor posture, which could cause spine, neck, and shoulders issues, and may accelerate spinal disc degeneration.

Even regular exercise cannot fully offset the risks of excessive sitting, as studies highlight that more than 10.5 hours of sedentary time daily is associated with a higher risk of heart failure and cardiovascular mortality.

Impact of lying down

Lying down for rest or sleep do not have risks when it comes to using this window for rest and recovery.

However, excessive lying down outside of sleeping hours can contribute to physical deconditioning. For example, it may weaken muscles, increase fat accumulation, and slow metabolic processes, especially in people who are bedridden. Unlike sitting, lying flat reduces pressure on the spine, making it less likely to cause musculoskeletal issues like back pain.

However, habitual lying down during waking hours can lead to similar negative effects of sitting, like slowed circulation and reduced energy expenditure. In extreme cases, it can lead to bedsores or musculoskeletal atrophy in immobilized individuals.

The one exception, of course, is sleep. Our bodies need those eight hours or so of being prone in order to complete various physiological repair processes.

In nutshell, lying down is beneficial only when done for rest and recovery, while sitting brings no such benefits and must be avoided.