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writers, you may want to stand up for this 9/3/2013 3:05:44 AM
Sitting is the new smoking Is writing killing you? It might be. I used to fly helicopters for a living. When I was a young pup I flew Hueys in Vietnam, amassing 1,200 hours of logged combat time. In Alaska I flew over forest fires, dowsing them from a helicopter, herding bears in my spare time. I once flew across O’Hare International at 500 feet during rush hour, in a tiny JetRanger, while hundred-ton aluminum behemoths landed and took off all around me. In Iowa I flew 3,200 emergency patient missions in all manner of weather, day and night, winter and summer. I survived all of that exposure. I’ve often told people, half in jest, that of my two careers, flying and writing, writing is harder. Turns out it may be more dangerous as well.
Sitting is the new smoking, as they say. And we writers do a lot of it. Sitting that is. As I write this, I’m ensconced at my writing desk, slouching, back bent over the keyboard, arms extended in a rather unnatural position that fatigues me after a very short time. We humans were not designed to sit for long periods of time, and because we do so without even thinking, our bodies are showing the patterns that we might expect. We’re getting fat, or I guess the politically correct term might be adiposally challenged. One in three Americans is now technically obese. We’re having much more back trouble than we once had. Back injuries are now the number one OSHA reported workplace illness.
Here’s a startling statistic: between 1980 and 2000 average American exercise rates stayed the same, sitting time increased 8% and the rate of obesity doubled. And it appears that the problem may increase geometrically since another study showed that obese people sit 2.5 times longer than people of normal weight, so compounding is inevitable. The key phrase in that mix, to me, is that exercise rate stayed the same. It appears that regardless how much we think exercise offsets our sedentary habit, such as sitting at a writing desk, our risk is still high. Sitting 6 hours per day, not unusual for any writer, makes ones risk of dying within 15 years 40% above that of non-sitting people. Maybe Papa Hemingway was onto something. It wasn’t just his hemhorroids that were killing him. He stood to write because he knew what all that sitting was doing to him. We won’t go into his suicidal behavior here. Just don’t kill yourself, okay? We need all the writers we have, and more.
Speaking of dying, many writers’ favorite topic it seems, people with writing jobs have twice the amount of cardiovascular disease as people with standing jobs.
Why does sitting raise our exposure to poor health? Here’s an incomplete list: sitting shuts down or lowers electrical activity in our leg muscles, causing potential long-term harm, the so called restless leg syndrome frequent flyers acquire; when we sit our caloric consumption drops to approximately 1 calorie per minute, which explains a lot of the obesity; the enzymes that help break down dietary fat drop 90%; so called good cholesterol drops 20%; after 24 hours insulin effectiveness drops 24%, raising risks of diabetes.*
So what to do? Quit writing? Not gonna happen. But there is hope for a stronger, healthier writer. Here’s a very short list of recommendations to keep us healthier, more alert, thinner and living longer as we peck away at the Great American Novel
➤ Set a timer on Mister Computer: 30 minutes is ideal. Get up, do a stretch, do a dozen jumping jacks. Walk around the office, or better yet upstairs and down five times. ( climbing steps increases energy use 220% over sitting, walking 150%)
➤ Lean back in your chair: sitting at a 90 degree angle is better than slumping forward over the keyboard, but not by much. Leaning with your back at a 135 degree angle is much better. Sitting puts twice the strain on our backs as standing or lifting. Use a lumbar support, a towel will do, arms should be at desk level and don’t cross your legs.
➤ Writer Gwen Bristol created a clever bike/seat doodad that she uses for exercise while writing. There are standing computer desks on the market that, though a bit spendy, address the sitting issue right away.
➤ I’m waiting for a colleague to announce The Healthy Writers’ Cookbook, or The Writing Diet, but have not seen it yet. Please respond if this book is available. In the meantime, here are a few tid-bits to consider, again from Gwen Bristol: nibble on kale leaves, cranberries, celery or kale chips, nuts, grapes (red ones have tannins that may help) and any kind of green or yellow veggie.
➤ No Smoking–good god, what are smokers thinking? Death wish? Anti-social? Heavily invested in tobacco stocks? I don’t get it, sorry but smoking is just dumb.
➤ Some related health tips for writers: get an eye exam on a regular basis. Computer eye strain is a real thing with us worsdsmiths. Kill the fluorescents. Incandescent bulbs are better, and lower wattage is better than higher. Minimize glare in your workspace. Keep drapes closed, and use soothing colors on walls. Upgrade your computer if you can afford to. Newer LCD displays are easier on the eyes than old style CRTs.
Finally, get up and move around when the timer goes off, stand up to write if possible, don’t chase off the blank-sheet terror with heavy, high calorie foods, keep up the exercise routine, whatever it might be and keep on writing. Maybe write that best-selling Writers’ Cookbook?
*sources:
