You get out of bed, get dressed and eat breakfast, sitting. You go outside and sit in your car. You drive to your office, walk to your desk, and sit for 7 hours. Once in a while you get up for coffee. Then you sit down again. You drive home. You sit while eating supper. You watch TV, sitting. And then sleep. This outline is reality for a lot of people. Without realizing it, they are sitting practically all day. And this is one of the worst habits for your health that exists!

Sitting is the new smoking

Smoking is becoming more of a taboo and less accepted socially, and now we’ve got a new challenge. Sit less and stand more! Sitting is not good for your body at all! Standing causes you to move around more. Your body is not built to sit. Just the opposite. Your joints like to move. Your blood circulates better when you move. Your nerve cells work better when you move. So does your brain! Your skin retains its elasticity. If people were built to sit, they would have fewer joints and not have elastic skin. Our agile spinal column would have been superfluous.

Give your organs space!

There are a number of organs in your abdomen that thrive best when they have room and are gently massaged. They get this massage when you move! Every time you get up, when you stretch and when you take a deep breath. If you sit on a chair, your abdominal cavity caves in and your organs have much less space. Your liver is on the right and your milt is on the left. Your ribs push against them when you sit. Your stomach is pushed in and your intestines have less space to move during digestion. Your lungs also have a big problem. They can’t open up very far when you sit. It causes your breathing to become shallower, resulting in decreased intake of oxygen.

Allow your neck, shoulders and lower back to relax!

Sitting is actually very unnatural. Because you hunch over slightly when you sit, there is constantly too much pull on your long back muscles and there is too much pressure on your neck and shoulders. In the long run, this causes the development of pain. Take truck drivers, for example, who make long hours and only sit. Many of them have back, shoulder or neck problems. By standing, walking, dancing more often, you help these muscles to relax and problems with pain won’t appear as quickly!

Sitting is not moving

When you sit, your muscles don’t move. Your calf muscles, thigh muscles, the muscles in your buttocks, back muscles, shoulder muscles; they are all still, while muscles love to move! That’s what they were made for! And your joints are also not moving. No movement means that the joints aren’t being lubricated. This can cause them to stiffen and slowly become painful. And maybe most importantly, movement supports the circulation of your blood. Your muscles massage the veins, making circulation easier. That relieves your heart, which is constantly pumping for you anyway. Move more, and you will literally ease your heart!

Standing is in fashion!

Offices are beginning to more often have ‘standing desks’. These are high desks, on which you put your computer. You work standing up. Without you being aware of it, your body is moving. You breathe more deeply, you rock regularly, you bounce up and down, turn circles with your feet, stand on one hip and then the other, move your legs closer to each other and then further apart again. All without realizing it. And you walk more readily away from your computer to take care of something. It makes you more pro-active! Your body loves this! And you can even lose weight because of it!

The MIR-Method and exercise

If you do the MIR-Method, your body will begin to notice that it wants to move. Your energy will improve through better absorption of nutrients, or because your sleep improves. You notice that you become more active and maybe even that you feel like dancing. Exercise makes you cleverer and increases your productivity, because it causes both halves of your brain to cooperate better with each other. In short, get rid of the chair and stand!

Build it up slowly

As always, it is important to take good care of yourself and be kind to yourself. If you suddenly stand for hours at a time, while your body is used to sitting, your body will protest and it will seem like your body won’t tolerate it. Build it up slowly. Maybe stand for the first half hour every day and then sit down again. Or, change position every half hour. You’ll work it out. Remember: every hour that you’ve stood, is pure gain for your health!
Have fun!

Have you noticed that you want to move more? Has doing the MIR-Method provided you with more energy? Feel like standing more? I’d love to hear about it from you! Thank you!! Please write your reaction below.

Have a lot of fun standing!
Greetings, Mireille Mettes

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P.S. Are you not yet familiar with the MIR-Method? Please go to the homepage: www.mirmethod.com.  You can watch the video there and also the instruction video. Register on the homepage to receive the newsletter and 6 weeks of coaching e-mails for extra support!