In a post for the Harvard Business Review, Nilofer Merchant calls sitting “the smoking of our generation.” She writes:

As we work, we sit more than we do anything else. We’re averaging 9.3 hours a day, compared to 7.7 hours of sleeping. Sitting is so prevalent and so pervasive that we don’t even question how much we’re doing it. And, everyone else is doing it also, so it doesn’t even occur to us that it’s not okay. In that way, I’ve come to see that sitting is the smoking of our generation.

 

Of course, health studies conclude that people should sit less, and get up and move around. After 1 hour of sitting, the production of enzymes that burn fat declines by as much as 90%. Extended sitting slows the body’s metabolism affecting things like (good cholesterol) HDL levels in our bodies. Research shows that this lack of physical activity is directly tied to 6% of the impact for heart diseases, 7% for type 2 diabetes, and 10% for breast cancer, or colon cancer.

And the Mayo Clinic seconds those health concerns. If you sit a lot at work, here are five simple exercises you can do in the office every day to mitigate some of those dangerous effects.

To support a less sedentary workday, we’re also doing a day challenge: If you stand up at work for one hour a day between today and next Wednesday, Jan. 30, leave a comment on this post and you’ll be entered to win a prize! Pretty outSTANDing, huh?