It would seem that sitting is dangerous. Very dangerous.
This blog entry is based on a study that I read in the British Medical Journal (BMJ Open 2012;2:e000828 doi:10.1136/bmjopen-2012-000828). The title of the study is "Public health
Sedentary behaviour and life expectancy in the USA: a cause-deleted life table analysis" and it was done by Peter T Katzmarzyk and I-Min Lee. But I also believe that the work work of Timothy W. Cacciatore is very important.
The authors reviewed studies on the mortality associated with sitting and television viewing from a meta-analysis of prospective cohort studies. The primary outcome was the life expectancy at birth. The estimated gains in life expectancy in the US population was 2.0 years if this population reducing excessive sitting to <3 h/day.
This study will not tell you how many years you will gain if you spent less time sitting. And it won't tell you how many years you will gain if you give up sitting. It studies populations and thus is of most interest to social scientist and policy makers.
But I can not help but stick my head into it. Not being a scientist this study does seem to suggest to me that if I sit less than three hours a day I'll live two year longer. What is two years? I can imagine if my employer moved me to a new building that was made with toxic paint and would take 2 yrs off my life, I would only go there under considerable duress. I can imagine being a cancer victim who has only a year left. I would beg to take an toxic, incredibly expensive drug that would only add about a month to my life. Two years is huge. But if my employer offers me a chair to sit in and I gladly sit in it. Should I be afraid of the chair?
How scary is the chair? I'm 55 and never smoked. But if I had smoked a pack a day for 13 years it would shorten my life the same 2 years. Sitting in that chair seems to have the same impact on my lifespan as smoking 94,900 cigarettes.
My chair is starting to scare me.
This blog is about developing groundwork for the question of how to sit zazen physically. What kind of things do we think about when we wonder how to arrange our bodies to sit? Among the thought must be: is it shortening my life? Should I be afraid of both my chair and my zafu? Is there a way to do zazen that does not shorten my life?
One aspect that I find really fascinating is that the authors use of "Sedentary behavior" in their title. It is not at all obvious to me that sitting is synonymous with being sedentary. All sitting is not the same. Biking is done while sitting, but riding a bike is a great form of exercise. Is the sitting for an hour durring a home game of professional soccer match the same as the last hour of sitting in a cubicle of a customer call center? Is sitting in a equestrian saddle the same as sitting in car stuck in traffic? It would seem that the authors intuitively believe that the problem is a sedentary lifestyle but the study can be criticized by their assumption that all sitting is the same and that it is always sedentary.
Is it sitting that is the problem or is it a sedentary lifestyle? Is sitting just a surrogate marker for the real underlying problem?
But let's go one step further. Is a sedentary lifestyle really the problem? The segments of my life that have been the most sedentary have been while I was in the monastery and durring week long retreats. Zazen is the most sedentary activity that can be imagined: "Don't move!" Zazen is more sedentary than sleeping!
And yet I have never felt more alive, more vibrant, than durring and after these retreats. It is just inconcevable that long periods of zazen shortened my life. In contrast, for me the same amount of sitting at work infront of a computer is stifling, smothering, deadening.
It's not the sitting that takes 2 years from our life. And it not being sedentary. It is collapsing that is dangerous. What is collapsing? Watch children. When playing and running about they will be using themselves quite efficiently in the midst of gravity, always responding to the changing stimulus by going up and out, lengthen and upright, neither tense nor flaccid In technical terms their antigravity and righting reflexes are active. They go all day without fatigue. Sit them down in a chair in front to a TV and they are initially upright and fully engaged But after a few minutes they collapse. No longer playing with gravity they slump and give up.
It is the slumping, the collapsing, the abandonment of our antigravity and attitudinal reflexes, the forsaking of our upright heritage that is damaging. I don't know exactly how this shortening and narrowing decreases our life span. Perhaps it is the compression and devitalization of our internal organs, perhaps the decreased respiratory function. Maybe the flow of chi is impinged.
But we can not blame the chair. We need to be honest and take responsibility for ourselves. The problem is what we are doing, not our environment. Our chairs provide a stimulus for us, like any other part of our environment. It is how we respond to that stimulus that is the problems. We have covered over our ability to respond efficiently while in a chair, blanketed our inborn reflexes with the comforting quilt of habit.
Our sitting habit is a comfortable friend who is trying to kill us. It will take two years from our life if we follow it.
That being said I still think the chair is a nasty, nasty thing. I'm fit, have had plenty of experience in Zen practice and lots of lessons in the Alexander Technique. Still, sitting in a chair is the most challenging activity in my life. I can maintain a sense of going up while sitting in a seiza bench or on a zafu much more easily. And standing is fun and easy.
I believe that the AT is at the center of how to sit physically. The AT is the yoga of Zen. But the benefits to studying the AT do not end with ability to sit upright or the ability to bring one's zen practice into everyday life. The AT, it seems, will help you live much longer.
OK. Here is an update. About 30% of my time at work is sitting at a computer. But I have began to loath the chair. Chairs are a strong stimulus to contract, collapse. My betters can choose how to respond to such stimuli. But I, being no better than your average Joe, find myself without any sense of "up" after an hour or two in my chair. So, being handy, I went to work on a weekend and raised my desk to standing height. I instantly knew that this was the right thing to have done! My work now meets me at my own level and inspires me to go up!
But now I have a new problem. Standing is a static posture and taking a static posture can highlight imperfections in use. The small study in the AT with pediatric laparoscopic urology residents suggested this. And musicians certainly will agree. Even neutral postures, such as zazen, can highlight "poor use" with pain. So I worried about standing more than 2 to three hours. Would I be uncomfortable?
I read an article just yesterday in my local newspaper about a fellow, much like me. He also raised his work station to standing height but found that it hurt his knees to stand. He then installed a treadmil so he could walk while at his desk. Perhaps he avoided the effects of his imperfect use while standing. Myself, I welcome a bit of discomfort if I can use it prompt me to inhibit and direct. But I wanted a plan B. What could I do if I needed a break from standing and didn't want to buy a treadmill?
When in a pinch, one tends to fall back on ones strengths. Being handy, I made this thing upon which I can sit. I not believe anyone who see it would call it a "chair". I'm not sure anything like it has been made before. But when I sit cross legged on it my eyes are at the same height as when I am standing. I can also perch on it. Actually I can do a number of things with my legs all the time keeping my eyes at the same height. (I tried, but failed, do design it be be a "kneeling chair" as well). Not being an engineer, the first prototype failed disastrously durring construction in my woodshop. Surviving, I shouldered on and am now very happy with this thing. I don't use it much. I use it to eat lunch, which I do at my desk - I hate to stand and eat. Also I use it at the end of the day as fatigue sets in.
My coworkers tend to groan quietly, shake their heads and roll their eyes when they see me on that thing. I don't mind. I just wag my finger at them and say "95,000 cigarettes!"
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| perching with a leg up. |
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| Standing. Also have storage room for my bike! |
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| perching |
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| Sitting cross-legged with supported |
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| full lotus at work!! |
