Go looking on the internet for behaviours that can shorten your life and you’ll find a joke about how going to the office shortens your life by eight hours a day. But the less funny reality is that, unless you’ve swapped your office chair for a standing desk, you genuinely are cutting your life short by sitting in front of a screen.
A paper published in 2012 looked at sedentary behaviour and life expectancy in the US and concluded that ‘limiting sitting to less than three hours a day may increase life expectancy at birth by approximately two years’.
This is likely to be because a sedentary lifestyle is associated with a higher risk of several conditions, including cardiovascular disease, diabetes, obesity and some cancers.
Another study had better news, finding that just 22 minutes a day of moderate to vigorous exercise was enough to offset the increased risk of death from prolonged sitting.