Dr. Joan Vernikos

A stunning 61 percent of the American population is now unhealthy. There has been much debate about our healthcare system, but it is evident that no system can cover the costs of health care when almost every citizen is unhealthy, and at current rates that is where we are headed in the next ten or twenty years.

Nothing speeds up brain atrophy like immobilization. And here we are, an entire population voluntarily immobilizing itself with its sedentary, comfort-oriented lifestyle. Gravity can’t help us when we’re sitting!

Our body was designed to live in gravity as a perpetual motion machine.

We know from space research and bed-rest studies that exercise alone is not the complete answer.

The simplest way to alternate the gravity load on the body is by changing posture.

Maintaining fitness of stabilizers through continuous low-intensity activities forms the foundation of a healthy, active body. Performing repetitive, sustained, low-intensity activities throughout the day is nature’s way of not allowing the stabilizer system to weaken.

Did you know that going down stairs is a more effective bone stimulus than walking? That is because you generate more G-impact and stretch your tendons more with every step down.

Exercise is not a substitute for activities that come naturally throughout the day, 365 days a year, for the rest of your life.

Make it fun. If you’ve got a rowing machine, combine your rowing with a favorite travel destination. Get a map and track your progress in rowing miles. You will be in Fiji in no time.

High-frequency, low intensity, habitual, stop-and-start activities throughout the day are the path to health. They make the most of gravity, and by their very nature include limitless varieties of movements that benefit your whole body.

Our body was designed to live in gravity as a perpetual motion machine.

Our body was designed to live in gravity as a perpetual motion machine.

Not only does modern life result in poor health by physical unloading due to too much sitting, but modern technological inventions which flood the market daily are causing mental and emotional overload through incessant stimulation around the clock. The body is unloaded while the brain is overloaded. This formula is sure to spell disaster in the future.

The bottom line is that by staying active, moving, and connected, you gain the reward of having energy all day, sleeping well at night, and feeling healthy, happy, and fulfilled. Just remember—your body is designed to move.

It is not the number of hours sat that are the problem, but rather the long hours of sitting without a break that cause poor modern health. Equally, standing for many hours without a break can be just as harmful to one’s health as sitting.

New data shows that as little as one or two hours of uninterrupted sitting can affect how you process your blood sugar, and can increase risk of cancer, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease, even if you exercise regularly.

The case is made concerning hours spent sitting and its relationship to mortality. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates 3.3 to 5 million people die annually due to physical inactivity, making it the fourth leading cause of mortality.

Ultimately, we’re talking about a shift in mindset from looking at exercise as the only savior to understanding and relishing that simply changing one’s posture along the G axis and moving in more effective ways will create the foundation for your health.

It is clear that exercise is important in reducing your overall cardiovascular risk as well as improving your fitness level. But study after study suggest that reducing how many hours you sit continuously every day may represent a more relevant factor than exercise.

In general, it appears that anything longer than three hours per day can increase health risks, and certainly over eight hours per day is in the danger zone.

Yes, sitting is now considered an independent risk factor for many chronic diseases as well as for premature death. Even if you smoke like a chimney or are a heavy drinker, or both, it’s actually the constant sitting that will do the most damage.

Throughout my fifty-five years in the space business, I was regularly asked about how we could send humans to live on Mars. How would our ancient genes fare in deep space and on foreign planets? The question is not much different here on Earth. How can we humans, with our ancestral genes, thrive in today’s or tomorrow’s technology-modified environment?