Fessing up to reading my parent's copy of the latest AARP newletter is not the most embarrassing admission of the day. The fact that I was seated, while reading, is the most heinous fact...or so the AARP article would have me believe. The title was something like, "Sitting--the New Smoking !" I am only slightly paraphrasing,here.
Puleeze...Now, even sitting is a sin.
Gimme a break, people. Do we have to resort to the lowest common denominator? Always? Just to gather readers' attention? It's bad enough reading the local rags and seeing the Republican races, let alone how many things are eventually going to do me in. (The Republicans may actually accomplish the task.) Now, I find that I've permanently damaged what few years may be left, because of my writers' "lifestyle"--or my hours of painting--or my past-- as a teacher and a social worker and a group leader of children.
(I won't include the hours on the toilet...or sitting in a bathtub...or at meals...or a childhood in school behind a desk or in church, in a pew...or visiting relatives and "being quiet and good", on their various over-stuffed furniture.)
According to AARP, we should now begin to set up desks over our treadmills (those of us lucky enough to own treadmills at home or lucky enough to pay for the extra electricity to run the treadmill...). We should eat standing up. At our jobs (if we are lucky enough to have them), we should get up at least every hour and take a "small walking break". Forget lunch, unless you can scarf it in an upright position and then use most of the lunch hour (those of us who get a full hour for lunch--as a teacher, we get maybe twenty-minutes, if no one stops us en route to the restroom or lunch room or even interrupts us in our own classroom where we are trying to log in grades, answer e-mails AND drink coffee or assimilate an apple.) walking what you ate, off.
No t.v., unless you are rowing or running in place. No seated phone calls, cellular or otherwise. Family meals should be served upright, too, and probably end with a family run, instead of dessert. Two hour movies are out. Unless you are watching somewhere you can pause the film after fifty minutes and take a race around the block, then resume another fifty minute session. Speaking of sessions, what about therapy?
Yes, I know, most sessions begin and end in about forty-five minutes, these days, but if you are doing some group work, it is longer. I guess those sessions should be done on elliptical machines, in a circle. Same with couples counseling; interventions and all scout meetings.
Many prayer groups are either on their knees or worshipping on their feet, these days; swaying and raising your arms high over your head keeps the prayers aerobic, so that's okay. But if you are old and just sitting in a church or synagogue or any house of God, in silent adoration, you are incurring the equivalent of those folks smoking their lungs out in the parking lots, before services. (Bad, bad, bad parishioner!)
I think of the monks and nuns I know who meditate, in various spiritual and philosophic traditions. These folks are the epitome of discipline. They eat spartan diets. They work in gardens, in abbeys, and in the community, all day. They don't use any kinds of luxury items in their lifestyles. But when they sit to meditate, they do so, for hours at a time. (Never mind the week-long retreats a few times a year!) Does this mean they are all on the road to early death?
You think I'm being facetious? You think that the article meant if one was a total couch potato and NEVER excercised, for weeks at a time, or years, even, then this would apply to that person. Or, if someone was not enrolled in a gym, or walking the family dog, or running a marathon a couple times a year, this would be geared to that kind of lard-butt, right? Oh no! The article goes on to mention the facts that this study took everything into consideration and found that even if you got the requisite hour of excercise in for three days a week, which is a general rule of thumb, or if you were a gym rat, it didn't matter.
If you drive to work, if you sit at a desk, if you remain seated at all meals or movies or read a book on the beach for more than fifty minutes at a time, you are doomed. You might as well be driving over the state border into New Hampshire to buy your cigarettes, tax free.
(I think about airline pilots. (Stewards are on their feets the whole flight, so no worries, but the pilots...) I think about bus drivers. Taxi drivers. Those of us who commute to work more than fifty-minutes per day (on good days with light traffic...). I think of search and rescue drivers, helicopter pilots and co-pilots, ambulance operators...anyone whose situation puts them in a "seat" where they don't have an option to take a five minute "break" every hour...).
What about people in wheelchairs?
Babies in strollers?
Farm workers on tractors or other big equipment operators?
Does this mean that we are all going to die?
Probably.
But isn't that how it is supposed to be? There's built-in time codes for everything on the planet, including the planet, itself, I believe. Does becoming a human hamster on a never-ending wheel mean that the planet will begin to host "layers" of hundred- plus year old humans? Will we be stacked on each other and roving over each other like colonies of bees, ants, roaches or other "never sitting" things?
How long do those creatures last? Compared to tortoises...hmmm. (But I guess tortoises never really "sit", do they?)
While I like the fact that AARP is so concerned for us "over fifties"--I would appreciate if they spent more time reminding Congress and the entire political system, that what we really need are jobs; better medical systems; more open minds and bigger hearts. Freaking us out about the stress relief that we do manage to garner, in our fractured lives, just isn't all that helpful. (What about last year's advice about "SLOW DOWN AND BREATHE"...or "learn to meditate and live longer"...?
But what do I know; I'm sitting down.
Puleeze...Now, even sitting is a sin.
Gimme a break, people. Do we have to resort to the lowest common denominator? Always? Just to gather readers' attention? It's bad enough reading the local rags and seeing the Republican races, let alone how many things are eventually going to do me in. (The Republicans may actually accomplish the task.) Now, I find that I've permanently damaged what few years may be left, because of my writers' "lifestyle"--or my hours of painting--or my past-- as a teacher and a social worker and a group leader of children.
(I won't include the hours on the toilet...or sitting in a bathtub...or at meals...or a childhood in school behind a desk or in church, in a pew...or visiting relatives and "being quiet and good", on their various over-stuffed furniture.)
According to AARP, we should now begin to set up desks over our treadmills (those of us lucky enough to own treadmills at home or lucky enough to pay for the extra electricity to run the treadmill...). We should eat standing up. At our jobs (if we are lucky enough to have them), we should get up at least every hour and take a "small walking break". Forget lunch, unless you can scarf it in an upright position and then use most of the lunch hour (those of us who get a full hour for lunch--as a teacher, we get maybe twenty-minutes, if no one stops us en route to the restroom or lunch room or even interrupts us in our own classroom where we are trying to log in grades, answer e-mails AND drink coffee or assimilate an apple.) walking what you ate, off.
No t.v., unless you are rowing or running in place. No seated phone calls, cellular or otherwise. Family meals should be served upright, too, and probably end with a family run, instead of dessert. Two hour movies are out. Unless you are watching somewhere you can pause the film after fifty minutes and take a race around the block, then resume another fifty minute session. Speaking of sessions, what about therapy?
Yes, I know, most sessions begin and end in about forty-five minutes, these days, but if you are doing some group work, it is longer. I guess those sessions should be done on elliptical machines, in a circle. Same with couples counseling; interventions and all scout meetings.
Many prayer groups are either on their knees or worshipping on their feet, these days; swaying and raising your arms high over your head keeps the prayers aerobic, so that's okay. But if you are old and just sitting in a church or synagogue or any house of God, in silent adoration, you are incurring the equivalent of those folks smoking their lungs out in the parking lots, before services. (Bad, bad, bad parishioner!)
I think of the monks and nuns I know who meditate, in various spiritual and philosophic traditions. These folks are the epitome of discipline. They eat spartan diets. They work in gardens, in abbeys, and in the community, all day. They don't use any kinds of luxury items in their lifestyles. But when they sit to meditate, they do so, for hours at a time. (Never mind the week-long retreats a few times a year!) Does this mean they are all on the road to early death?
You think I'm being facetious? You think that the article meant if one was a total couch potato and NEVER excercised, for weeks at a time, or years, even, then this would apply to that person. Or, if someone was not enrolled in a gym, or walking the family dog, or running a marathon a couple times a year, this would be geared to that kind of lard-butt, right? Oh no! The article goes on to mention the facts that this study took everything into consideration and found that even if you got the requisite hour of excercise in for three days a week, which is a general rule of thumb, or if you were a gym rat, it didn't matter.
If you drive to work, if you sit at a desk, if you remain seated at all meals or movies or read a book on the beach for more than fifty minutes at a time, you are doomed. You might as well be driving over the state border into New Hampshire to buy your cigarettes, tax free.
(I think about airline pilots. (Stewards are on their feets the whole flight, so no worries, but the pilots...) I think about bus drivers. Taxi drivers. Those of us who commute to work more than fifty-minutes per day (on good days with light traffic...). I think of search and rescue drivers, helicopter pilots and co-pilots, ambulance operators...anyone whose situation puts them in a "seat" where they don't have an option to take a five minute "break" every hour...).
What about people in wheelchairs?
Babies in strollers?
Farm workers on tractors or other big equipment operators?
Does this mean that we are all going to die?
Probably.
But isn't that how it is supposed to be? There's built-in time codes for everything on the planet, including the planet, itself, I believe. Does becoming a human hamster on a never-ending wheel mean that the planet will begin to host "layers" of hundred- plus year old humans? Will we be stacked on each other and roving over each other like colonies of bees, ants, roaches or other "never sitting" things?
How long do those creatures last? Compared to tortoises...hmmm. (But I guess tortoises never really "sit", do they?)
While I like the fact that AARP is so concerned for us "over fifties"--I would appreciate if they spent more time reminding Congress and the entire political system, that what we really need are jobs; better medical systems; more open minds and bigger hearts. Freaking us out about the stress relief that we do manage to garner, in our fractured lives, just isn't all that helpful. (What about last year's advice about "SLOW DOWN AND BREATHE"...or "learn to meditate and live longer"...?
But what do I know; I'm sitting down.
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