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Simple activities to be active at your desk – Part 3

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Desk-based workers can spend a lot of time at their desk sitting. If you are a regular follow of this blog, you will know that high levels of sitting time can have several detrimental impacts on health and wellbeing, including on cognitive function, risk of diabetes, physical function and quality of life. Prolonged sitting – that is, sitting for a long time without taking a break – is emerging as particularly harmful, which is why we promote regular breaks from sitting at BeUpstanding. Indeed, a 2022 systematic review and meta-analysis by Loh and colleagues highlighted the beneficial effects of having regular physical activity breaks on blood sugar, insulin, and triacylglycerol measures. Their article concluded that taking short breaks from prolonged sitting results in better glycemic control and improved metabolic control compared to individuals who do not incorporate short physical activity breaks. One impact of too much sitting for too long is on our musculoskeletal health. Here, prolonged sitting can cause tight hip flexors and leg muscles. Vanroelen (2022) states that these imbalances are due to the shortened and lengthened muscles in your legs due to muscle weakness and tightness. These imbalances can lead to a compensatory hyperlordosis or excessive inward…

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How do BeUpstanding teams choose their top 3 strategies to stand up, sit less and move more?

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One of the key components of the BeUpstanding program is to hold a staff consultation workshop with all team members. The aim of the workshop is to provide information about the program to staff, give them the opportunity to discuss potential ways in which they can stand up, sit less, and move more at work, and the collectively select three top strategies to implement as a team during the 8-week program and beyond. Ideally the workshop is held in-person, however, we know that COVID and other factors have affected how and where people work.  As a result, an in-person staff workshop was not always possible for the teams taking part in our national trial of BeUpstanding and teams conducted this consultation and gained staff input in various ways. As part of our research, we are interested in finding out how staff were engaged in decision making around potential BeUpstanding strategies. This data was obtained via the program completion survey that workplace BeUpstanding champions completed upon finishing the 8-week implementation phase of the program. In the survey, champions were asked how they gained input from staff on how they wanted to BeUpstanding (in addition to or instead of the staff workshop),…

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Simple activities to be active at your desk – Part 2

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Guidelines recommend regular breaks from prolonged sitting, and at team BeUpstanding, we encourage breaks at least every 30 minutes. Here are some activities that you can do at your desk to help combat some of the impacts of prolonged sitting. Individuals who sit for a prolonged amount of time tend to have rounded shoulders, tight neck muscles, and have back pain and this is known as upper-crossed syndrome. Balciuniene et al. discuss that there is an imbalance with your upper body muscles like your upper trapezius, levator scapula, and pectoralis major and minor, since these dorsal and ventral muscles cross, which create a pattern of joint dysfunction leading to spinal stress and poor posture. These features of having a forward head posture and thoracic kyphosis, excessive upper back curvature, to name a few, leads to poor shoulder stability and mobility, especially at the glenohumoral joint in your shoulder. This causes an overactivation of some muscles like your levator scapulae and upper trapezius to try to maintain body alignment. Kim et al. (2016) determined that postural pain syndrome can be a result from upper-crossed syndrome and poor posture due to prolonged sitting. Lee et al. (2017) discussed that incorporating exercises using…

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Simple activities to be active at your desk – Part 1

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Guidelines recommend regular breaks from prolonged sitting, and at team BeUpstanding, we encourage breaks at least every 30 minutes. Here are three activities that you can do at your desk to help combat some of the impacts of prolonged sitting. Wall Sit with Calf Raise We all sit hunched over in our chairs whenever we work on a project or browse on our computer. Sometimes people tend to hunch over when eating food at a table. If you have ever seen anyone walking around with a curved lower back, or excessive lumbar lordosis, their posture may have been severely impacted from sitting hunched over at a desk all day. Wall sits help improve your posture and improve your lower body muscle endurance, while strengthening your muscles. Here are the steps to executing a wall sit with a calf raise. Place your back against the wall Squat down until your legs are at 90 degrees Raise up your toes and lower your heels back down to perform one repetition Add a weight on your legs for an extra challenge Performing this exercise allows the body to engage the abdominal muscles as you brace your core in order to keep your back…

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Modelling the potential health and economic benefits of reducing population sitting time in Australia

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Strong evidence indicates that excessive time spent sitting (sedentary behaviour) is detrimentally associated with multiple chronic diseases. A paper titled “Modelling the potential health and economic benefits of reducing population sitting time in Australia” has recently been published in the International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity and describes the development of the first Australian sedentary behaviour model that can be used to predict the long term consequences of interventions targeted at reducing sedentary behaviour through reductions in sitting time. The authors report that sedentary behaviour is prevalent among adults in Australia and has increased during the COVID-19 pandemic. Therefore, estimating the potential health benefits and healthcare cost saving associated with reductions in population sitting time, could be useful for the development of public health initiatives. A sedentary behaviour model was developed and incorporated into an existing proportional, multi-state, life table Markov model (ACE-Obesity Policy model). This model simulates the 2019 Australian population (age 18 years and above) and estimates the incidence, prevalence and mortality of five diseases associated with sedentary behaviour (type 2 diabetes, stroke, endometrial, breast and colorectal cancer). According to the model, if all Australian adults sat no more than 4 h per day, this would result in health…

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Economics of Sedentary Behaviour

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It is well established that sedentary behaviour is an established risk factor for several diseases; however, its economic impacts are less understood. Published in Preventative Medicine last week, a paper titled “Economics of sedentary behaviour: A systematic review of cost of illness, cost-effectiveness, and return on investment studies” is the first review that has investigated the broader economic credentials of Sedentary Behaviour. The authors, Nguyen P et al., reviewed the literature on the economic costs associated with excessive sedentary behaviour and the cost-effectiveness of interventions targeting sedentary time. The review identified nine articles. Three reported healthcare costs associated with excessive sedentary time, and found that healthcare costs associated with excessive sedentary time as reported in cost of illness studies were substantial. However, none explored non-health sector costs. In the six articles which were economic evaluations of interventions targeting sedentary behaviour, they adopted a societal perspective. However, costs included differed depending on the intervention context. The authors concluded that excessive sedentary behaviour is likely associated with excess healthcare costs and of the limited interventions targeting sedentary behaviour reduction that have been economically evaluated, most were likely to be cost-effective. The most promising interventions from a cost-effectiveness perspective were those that included…

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Can Too Much Sitting be Contributing to Depression?

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A recent blog post titled ‘Can Too much Sitting be Contributing to Depression’ was published by the Sedentary Behaviour Research Network. It looked at the relationship between sitting and depression and reported that the research seems to support the idea that excessive sitting is positively correlated with an increase in depression. It also highlighted two distinct types of sedentary sitting behaviour: mentally passive (ex. Watching television) and mentally active (ex.reading or driving), and that it is the mentally passive sitting that could have deleterious health effects. You can read the full blog here.

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BeUpstanding Champion Perspectives: What Makes a Good Champion

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In a previous blog article titled ‘What makes a good champion’ we wrote about some of the qualities that make an effective workplace champion. Previous research suggests that those who have a genuine passion for health and wellbeing and are enthusiastic about the opportunity to inspire others towards a healthier lifestyle (Healy et al., 2018) are the most effective champions. They must also be committed to making long-term positive health changes in their workplace and display a good relationship with their peers. More general personality traits like outgoingness and motivation have been positively linked to champion performance (Howell, 2005). Highly motivated individuals are also more likely to engage with the content and be prepared to persist when faced with challenges. As part of the survey champions complete after finishing the 8-week BeUpstanding Program, they are asked what qualities or characteristics they believe make an effective champion in the BeUpstanding program, as well as what characteristics and qualities they possess that they feel helped them be a champion for their team. Common attributes identified by champions that they believe make a good BeUpstanding champion, based on their experiences, included motivated, approachable, committed, and positive. These qualities and others can be seen…

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COVID-19 saw us sitting for longer and diabetes rates increasing

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COVID saw us sitting longer – and diabetes rose globally by 16% in 2 years. Time to get moving Christian Brakenridge, Baker Heart and Diabetes Institute and David Dunstan, Baker Heart and Diabetes Institute New figures show global diabetes prevalence has increased by 16% in the past two years, with 537 million adults (aged 20-79) now estimated to be living with the chronic condition. Over this same time period, COVID has stopped us doing some of the things that help prevent and manage diabetes. One particularly concerning example is an increase to sedentary behaviour (sitting down for long periods of time), which was already at dangerous levels pre-COVID. Some estimates indicate the pandemic added an average three hours to our sitting time each day. Now lockdowns have eased in many places, it is vital we get moving again – and in the right way – to change this picture. Reducing sitting time is a good starting place to help people with diabetes, pre-diabetes and other chronic conditions to reach healthier levels of physical activity. A growing global problem Data from the International Diabetes Federation’s 10th Diabetes Atlas, officially launched today, shows about 10% of the world’s population aged 20–79 now live…

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Does taking small breaks really work?

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A recent research article published by the American Journal of Physiology in 2021, showed that standing and moving around every 30 minutes for at least 3 minutes, taking at least 15 steps during this time, can reduce the negative health complications of prolonged sitting, such as high blood glucose and cholesterol levels. The findings, which were highlighted in a recent New York Times article, showed that frequently taking small breaks from long periods of sitting time – even by doing fairly low levels of moving – can protect and improve metabolic health. The research began by recruiting 16 volunteers. The target group were obese adults (18-60 years) who were in a sedentary occupation or unemployed, with both men and women included. Participants were fitted with an activity monitor and a blood glucose monitor. They were then monitored for one week to capture their baseline levels of activity and glucose control. After the baseline period, participants were randomly allocated into control groups and intervention groups. Participants in control groups continued with their normal lifestyle. However, participants in the intervention group were prompted to take frequent short breaks from prolonged sitting throughout the day. Every 30 minutes participants in intervention group were…

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