Germany is sitting! Whether at work, at university, at home or behind the wheel – many Germans sit all day and this can affect our physical health in the long run. For example, unpleasant back pain, intervertebral disc problems and neck tension can be the result. So, do we get sick from sitting all the time?
Widespread disease number 1? Backache!
Around 40 million Germans regularly complain of back pain and every second employee is affected by back pain at least once a year. This is also shown by the statistics – around 1/3 of the absences from work in Germany are due to back problems. What does this mean in absenteeism? The average time lost from work for those affected is around 18 days per year.
A typical working day
What does a typical working day look like? According to a survey, 2/3 of Germans exercise less than 1 hour a day. Thus, we are inactive for almost 11 hours a day. And what about employees who also have a sedentary job? Office workers sit for around 80,000 hours over the course of their lives.
We’ll show you what a typical working day in Germany looks like and how many hours we spend in a sitting position.
- 0.5 hours – breakfast
- 0.5 hours – car or train ride to work
- 4 hours – (office) work at the desk
- 0.5 hours – lunch
- 4 hours – (office) work at the desk
- 0.5 hours – car or train ride home
- 1 hour – dinner with the family
- 1 hour – relaxing on the couch or in front of the TV
This gives us a total of 12 hours of sitting time every day.
Consequences for our body
The spine is the central axis of our body and the link between different parts of our skeleton such as the head, pelvis and arms. The spine consists of 33 to 34 vertebrae. The vertebral bodies are there to support our spine. In the vertebral body itself there is a sponge-like system of fine trabeculae – our intervertebral discs. These compensate for the pressure on the spine and are responsible, among other things, for shock absorption and fluid exchange. However, this also means that our intervertebral discs thrive on physical exercise. Without movement, there is a static load. This in turn leads to a standstill of the metabolism. Sitting or standing for long periods of time puts a lot of strain on the spine – but sitting is more harmful than standing. But there is hope: a study proves that intervertebral discs are regenerative. In this way, our intervertebral discs can recover through skilful movement and, incidentally, we do something good for our entire body.