Sedentary lifestyle harms the health of the body and mental health. Activities that require you to remain seated are associated with an increased risk of anxiety.
Sitting is not just bad for your physical health. Sedentary activities, such as watching TV, the computer, or playing video games, are associated with an increased risk of anxiety. This is the conclusion of a systematic review of the literature published in BMC Public Health.
Symptoms of anxiety are more and more common in the modern world. About 27 million people suffer from it. Is there a link with the growing sedentary lifestyle of the working population? This is the question asked by the authors of the study. They included nine studies conducted on adults and adolescents.
In five publications, the more sedentary the behavior, the higher the risk for anxiety. Four of them even conclude that it is the time spent sitting that influences this probability. In a work carried out with adolescents, the value of this link is even quantified: the risk of anxiety is increased by 36% in those who spend more than two hours in front of a screen.
Factors to be clarified
Several factors could explain this association. Screen-related sleep disorders figure prominently, as is poor metabolic health. Indeed, a sedentary lifestyle is associated with obesity, cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, or even osteoporosis. Theories suggest that sedentary behaviors can lead to withdrawal from society, which could be linked to anxiety.
In any case, “it is important to understand the behavioral factors that may be linked to anxiety, in order to be able to develop evidence-based prevention or management strategies for this disease,” emphasizes Megan. Teychenne, main author of the study. The available evidence suggests a positive association between time spent sitting and anxiety symptoms. She therefore calls for broader studies to shed light on the origin of this link.
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