 Hi, this is Jill Bates, ESU 8 Assistant Administrator and Nursing Coordinator. Thanks for joining me today to today's Wednesday webinar entitled, Get Up and Take a Stand – Understanding Our Sedentary Lifestyle. We'll learn why it's important to get out of our chairs and take a stand. Let's start by thinking about our own personal sitting behaviors. How much do you sit in a typical day – 4 hours, 6 hours, 8 hours or longer? As the photograph even displays, small children are sitting longer hours because of exposure to technology including computers, tablets and TV. During this presentation, I'm going to refer to the JustStand.org website. This website is packed with resources, one of which is the tool, Sitting Time Calculator. This online calculator asks you to identify how long you sit when you eat meals and when you're at work. It also includes sitting behaviors during commutes, watching TV and while working on the computer. Let's see how it works. I like to think of myself as a fairly active individual. I take the time to exercise every day and I also try to move away from my desk when I'm in the office. However, when all of my daily sitting is added together, my personal risk for sitting disease is high. Yikes! 10 and a half hours of sitting each day? I find that unbelievable and kind of frightening. According to researcher James Levine, humans have only sat for about 200 years. We are not designed for chairdom. Sitting is more dangerous in smoking, kills more people than HIV and is more treacherous than parachuting. We are sitting ourselves to death. How did no one notice? The typical American is active only 3 hours per day. And we don't like that we're so sedentary. According to their research, 67% of Americans hate sitting, yet 86% of us sit all day at work, only taking breaks primarily to visit the restroom or get a drink. Sitting can be uncomfortable, disrupt our workflow, and limit focus and productivity. Over half of those surveyed said they'd rather stand more while working than do 30 minutes of cardio exercise. Many even reported a willingness to go without coffee or give up social media for a week if they could stand more often. So why is standing so important? Let's find out by watching this video from JustStand.org about you, that the information shared in that video really grabbed my attention. I even feel a little bit of guilt sitting here recording this webinar. I should be standing, right? All the information in that video we just watched is based on this list of references, including the CDC Take a Stand Project. For me, one of the most alarming facts in that video is this one. We've become so sedentary that 30 minutes a day at the gym may not counteract the detrimental effects of 8, 9, or 10 hours of sitting. I mentioned earlier that I try to exercise at least a half hour each day. And now I find out that because I sit so much when I'm in the office, the daily exercise that I get may not impact my health as positively as I originally thought. Also, for people who sit most of the day, their risk of heart attack is about the same as smoking. Unbelievable. In James Levine states, today our bodies are breaking down from obesity, high blood pressure, diabetes, cancer, depression, and the cascade of health ills and everyday malaise that come from what scientists have named sitting disease. So what is sitting disease? Medical experts have started referring to long periods of physical inactivity and its negative consequences as the sitting disease. A study of 6,300 people published in the American Journal of Epidemiology estimated that the average American spends 55% of our waking time in sedentary behaviors. A 2010 study by the American Cancer Society found that women who were inactive and sat over 6 hours per day were 94% more likely to die during the same time period than those who sat less than 3 hours a day and their mild counterparts were 48% more likely to die. Ladies, we need to pay attention. Standing a little more each day tones muscles, improves posture, increases blood flow, ramps up metabolism, and burns extra calories. How many calories? Well, let's use the juststand.org calorie calculator to find out. I've entered information for a 160 pound individual who works 8 hours a day. If this individual stands while working, he'll burn an additional 320 calories per day and over 10 days, that would mean a one pound loss in weight by simply standing. So what's the remedy? The remedy is sit less, stand more, start now. The American Medical Association Centers for Disease Control and American Cancer Society agreed that we should reduce time spent sitting by using standing desks or other alternatives. In fact, research shows if people sat 3 hours less a day, it would add 2 years to the average U.S. life expectancy. Do we need to break up with our office chairs? Comfortable too fast. I know you're soft, but it's just not right. I feel like I'm with you 55% of my day, then look at me. I work out all the time, but no, it's not good enough, is it? Oh, oh, you know what else I heard? I heard I could be even more fit without you. Fact. Yeah, well, I think we're done. Goodbye. Listen, we're probably going to see each other around the office, so don't make this weird, all right? OK, that's kind of a humorous way to take a look at prolonged sitting in the office, but perhaps a standing desk is an option. This is a photograph of a desk that we have here at ESU 8. Now I recognize that purchasing or even building a standing desk isn't always an option. So here are some ways that creative people have created standing desks using carts, bookstands, boxes, and even cement blocks. Do we all need a standing desk? Probably not. Maybe we just need to consciously think about standing periodically throughout the day to harvest some of the benefits. The CDCs take a stand project, identified these positive results from increasing non-sitting time by just one hour per day. 87% of participants felt more energized and more comfortable. 75% felt healthier. 71% felt more focused, and 66% felt more productive. On the flip side, 50% felt reductions in upper back, neck, and shoulder pain, while 38% felt a reduction in fatigue. And not surprisingly, 100% felt better, and two out of three participants reported feeling much better. Participants reported increased focus, reduced pain, and improved posture. Increasing non-sitting time by just one hour a day was the impetus for several participants to increase physical activity in other areas of their lives. So how can we easily add standing to our day? Juststand.org suggests the following ways. A very simple and easy way is to stand every time the phone rings and remain standing throughout the call. Stand up during meetings and when you drink coffee or have a snack. Wash the clock and stand up from your desk at a predetermined time interval. Juststand.org also recommends that we stand when our frustration levels increase, simply to clear our heads and get a different perspective. Another suggestion is to install a timer or a browser extension or app that pops up on your computer and asks you to perform a simple exercise. I have the Move It Chrome browser extension installed on my computer. You can customize the exercise interval for five to 55 minutes and enable or disable the extension when appropriate. On my computer, every 55 minutes, Move It asks me to get up and do something, like perform 10 wall push-ups or 10 knee lifts. Well, now sometimes it can be annoying and it can interrupt my thought process, but you know, it also makes me think about my health and that's a good thing. We adults need to think about our health and our physical activity levels. But what about our students? This Juststand.org infographic states research shows physical activity can strengthen key parts of the brain that help us learn. Over the past three decades, childhood obesity rates in the U.S. have tripled and nearly one in three children are overweight or obese. Also frightening is the statistic that two out of three kids today are inactive and do not receive enough physical activity. Now we know that learning plus movement that causes increased oxygen to the brain can lead to higher academic performance. Researchers found that active children show superior motor fitness, academic performance and attitude toward school over those kids who don't engage in daily exercise. So perhaps we can give students an opportunity to stand periodically too. Even low-level physical activity can have a positive impact on student health, engagement and academic performance. A Mayo Clinic estimate indicates that a standing child will burn 15 calories an hour more than when he or she is sitting. Over the course of a school year, that's equal to a five-pound loss of fat. So an active classroom can help reduce childhood obesity. You might want to check out a previous Wednesday webinar from last spring to learn more about incorporating brain breaks to help keep students engaged and focused. Now we all need to remember that standing all day may not be healthy or practical. Sometimes we just have to sit. We naturally want to sit at times to rest or when we are concentrating intensely. However, let's all try to add one hour of standing to our day. To recap, here are some easy ways to do just that. Walk more at work. Park your car farther away from the building. Use the stairs or take the long route to the restroom or your mailbox. While computing, set a timer to remind you to stand up and stretch. Or use this time to pick up and clean your work area. Stand up when you talk on the phone. Don't send emails if the recipient is near. Walk over and talk to him or her. When you're watching TV, lose the remote. Get up to change the channels, just like we used to do in the old days. Stand or exercise while you watch TV. Or just stand and move around during those pesky commercial breaks. I purchased James Levine's book. One of the final pages states the following. As a society, we sit at a juncture. If we stay on this course, diabetes, obesity, cardiovascular death, cancer and dementia will ravage our generation, our children, and all those that follow. If we get up now and plan an active way forward, there is hope. Charalessness will not cost money, in fact, the opposite. At a personal workplace and national level, a chairless revolution, a national uprising of human movement will improve productivity and generate revenue, better health, clean air and enhanced happiness. The good news is that there are scientifically validated solutions for your company, school, community and self. Strategies, technologies, tools and plans exist that can help you get up and stay up. I offer you a promise. If you get up from your chair, you'll be better for it. Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions or comments about this webinar. And check out the JustStand.org website for additional information and resources. Thanks so much and remember to take a stand.