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How do you spend your daily life? Perhaps you work from or in the office while sitting all day typing away countless data sheets, or you may also be a student who studies diligently in front of your desk. In your leisure time, you most probably spend your day sitting on the couch while watching the TV, enjoying other devices, or playing games.
If sitting all day is your everyday reality, you may get a bit drowsy or feel a severe ache in your back. However, aside from the physical pain, sitting all day is also harming your mental health.
A sedentary lifestyle includes a series of practices that only involve lying or sitting. In other words, it is a very inactive lifestyle with little to no exercise. Prolonged periods of sedentary patterns can seriously affect your back and spine and even increase your blood pressure. However, as much as it affects your physical health, being inactive all day, for instance, sitting all day, can also cause mental illness.
Aside from physical disorders, long hours of sitting also have negative effects on your mental health. Due to inactivity, you can experience a series of emotional pain, feelings of stress, and other mental health conditions. Prolonged periods of inactivity, for instance, sitting all day, may result in difficult times.
Studies show that among primary and secondary patients, the different symptoms of depression were associated with lower levels of physical activity. Another study found that people with a low frequency of vigorous physical activities are correlated to those diagnosed with depression. These findings mean that long periods of inactivity may cause a severe medical illness affecting your thoughts and feelings.
From lacking self-esteem to losing interest in other activities, depression changes how you perceive the world. It may affect your emotional health and have severe feelings of sadness and other negative emotions. You may also experience difficulty concentrating and lack energy. This shows how sitting for prolonged hours may impact your mental health.
Whenever you face a stressful situation, you become anxious about the possible outcome or the next thing that might possibly happen. However, anxiety is different from the feeling of being anxious or nervous. Although it is identified that genetic, psychological, environmental, and developmental factors cause these types of disorders, studies show that lack of physical movement for an extended period can also cause anxiety.
Due to inactivity, people tend to have fewer physical interactions with others. They trap themselves in a box and retreat away from society. This is known as social withdrawal. Although it may also be a symptom, sitting still in one place for a long time prevents social interactions and can cause anxiety disorders in individuals. Thus, a lack of physical interactions due to inactivity can cause anxiety disorders and even depression.
Indulging in different physical activities can improve the quality of life. Aside from benefiting your physical health, it also strengthens your mental state. Different chemicals in the human brain are released whenever you perform physical activities.
Specifically, when you begin to exercise or move, neurotransmitters like endorphins, known to block pain, and dopamine, often called the happy hormone, are released. Besides physical health, it is essential to maintain your mental health.
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