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People are becoming more and more sedentary in today's society, which comes with a host of health risks, from cardiovascular disease to Type 2 diabetes and obesity.
Spending too much time sitting and being inactive can damage your brain function too. The good news? There are ways to minimize the cognitive harms of sitting if you keep your mind engaged while doing so.
Expert Tip of the Day: Keep Your Mind Active While Sitting to Protect Brain Health
A recent study that looked at 20,811 Swedish adults, mostly women between 35 and 64 years old, found that adding one hour of mentally active behavior while sedentary a day decreased dementia risk by 4%, and that replacing one hour of mentally passive behavior with mentally active behavior decreased it by 7%.
Mentally active behaviors included office work, such as sitting in a meeting, knitting, sewing and doing a puzzle (even on a computer). Watching TV and listening to music, on the other hand, were categorized as mentally passive.
The participants who spent the most time sedentary and mentally passive had a “significantly higher risk of developing some type of dementia in the future,” Mats Hallgren, principal researcher at the Karolinska Institute and author of the study, told NBC News.
Why It Matters
Long periods spent sitting, reclining or lying down are associated with "major risk factors for dementia," Hallgren said. That means, for many people, the more time spent sitting could translate to greater risk of cognitive decline. (Although, because the study didn't prove that one causes the other, it could also be the case that people who have higher dementia risk are more likely to engage in mentally passive behaviors.)
The brain “works like a muscle,” Hallgren added. When you don't use it for a long time, this can harm the regions used for memory and learning new information.
What's more, the data on participants predates smart phones and "doomscrolling," so it's not clear how these behaviors may affect dementia risk. Research in older adults has found that phone use can be beneficial for the brain, but the effect on kids and young adults could be very different.
How to Get Started
It’s natural to want to take a load off at the end of the day. Thankfully, the research shows that these moments don’t have to be completely sedentary in order to be relaxing. Activities including reading, word and number games, knitting and puzzles — all of which you can do sitting or reclining — have been linked to better brain health over the years, TODAY.com previously reported.
TODAY’s Expert Tip of the Day series is all about simple strategies to make life a little easier. Every Monday through Friday, different qualified experts share their best advice on diet, fitness, heart health, mental wellness and more.
This article was originally published on TODAY.com
