'Active' sitting is better for brain health: review of studies
sciencealert.com68 points by mikhael 7 hours ago
68 points by mikhael 7 hours ago
"Passively watching TV" feels like a common target for brain health/strength/etc discussions. I'm curious if there's been any studies into the differences that engagement with television programs can have on the brain. There's been a whole breadth of television programming over the decades. I think it would be wrong to treat it all as equal in regards to how it impacts your brain.
I don't even think it's the same across viewers. When my partner and I watch some shows, we make prediction for the plot and evaluations of characters. We even have a bet book where we record and score predictions for some shows. It's makes watching much more engaging, especially if the creators hide details and foreshadowing in the background. But you don't even need high quality content to do this, just tighten the restrictions. Law and Order and Hallmark movies only get 30 seconds of content before we make predictions.
It's much more stimulating than just passive consumption. If I don't do this I feel like brain turns to mush after a few hours of TV.
My wife and I do this for Survivor and The Amazing Race. We’re very engaged, debating strategy, making predictions. And then we watched with other people and they just … watched.
It comes down to your level of engagement, if you are interested in and knowledgeable about any of the arts which comprise TV/Film (acting, directing, set dressing, etc) you are very likely to more actively engage with TV than the average person does with literature.
I think there was some study where it was somewhat confirmed that watching people exercise had some beneficial effect without doing any exercise yourself.
I'm confused by this... It seems to me like the relevant part is "playing computer games is good" not "the type of sitting you do matters". Playing computer games while standing might be even better
"A professor at the Institute for Work and Health found that people who stand throughout the day at their jobs have a 2.2 times higher risk of developing heart disease than those people who sit during the day." https://www.ergolink.com.au/blog/standing-vs-sitting-at-a-de...
I was a little miffed that this blog didn't include a link to that particular study, especially with how vague the citation is, so I went and found the original publication[0].
Of note, they have a "Setting the record straight" addendum[1] that includes a couple important quotes:
"Misconception #1: Office workers should now be confused about whether they should sit or stand, and about whether sit/stand stations are a good idea. They shouldn’t be, says Smith. The study’s main finding was about workers who are required to stand for long periods (i.e. five hours or more) throughout their work shift, without opportunities to sit. Extending this to any worker who stands (e.g. an office worker using a sit-stand desk) is not correct. This is because office workers who stand at these types of workstations likely have the option to sit down when they get tired or when they feel pain in their legs and back."
and
"Misconception #2: We no longer have to worry about the negative health effects of prolonged sitting, thanks to this study. Not so fast, says Smith. There was nothing in this study to refute the research on the health consequences of a sedentary lifestyle. Much of that research is about sitting too much throughout the day—at work, while commuting and at home. This study only focused on prolonged sitting and prolonged standing at work.
"And even within the study, another finding about prolonged sitting at work got lost in the coverage. Yes, prolonged standing occupations were linked with twice the risk of heart disease as prolonged sitting jobs. However, prolonged sitting jobs were still linked, among men, with a 40 per cent higher risk of heart disease compared to jobs that involve a mix of standing, sitting and walking."
[0]: https://www.iwh.on.ca/newsletters/at-work/90/standing-too-lo...
[1]: https://www.iwh.on.ca/news/study-on-prolonged-standing-and-h...
"workers who are required to stand without opportunities to sit" sounds like it's little to do with posture and everything to do with the kind of jobs that don't let people sit typically being lower paid gigs for a different demographic...
I can think of a lot of confounding factors for that. Are they just looking at standing desks, or also at the numerous blue collar and service industry jobs that demand long hours of standing at machines and registers? If it's just the former, then there's the question of what kind of people choose standing desks over sitting desks. Is it people worried about their health but don't take the time to exercise outside of work and think standing will be enough? If the latter applies, then there's facts about the stresses and complications of being less financially secure, such as less access to healthcare, longer working hours, poorer diets.
Certainly but correlations not working make it unlikely that sitting is a dominant factor in current health problems. Looking at the details described it makes sense that sitting is a form of idleness and idleness is possible in a standing job. Therefore idleness could more reasonably be the dominant factor with other correlations then contributing more for idle standers than idle sitters, etc.
It's probably more "active" sitting. If you are a gamer (especially computer gamer), you are generally not just sitting back "relaxing". Your body is more engaged and you are constantly moving your body in some way.
Sitting and watching tv you can literally be completely still for long periods of time.
Consider StarCraft: Brood War, a legendary real-time strategy game. To be played well, it requires between 200-400 actions per minute (APM), with some players going even beyond 500 APM. Some games last for more than an hour. Players use both the mouse and the keyboard. There's always more to do than you can realistically do. You are always putting out fires, managing your economy, producing units, securing income, carrying multiple attacks at once, fighting tactical battles, and executing strategic goals. Yeah I'd call that a pretty active sitting :)
I am thinking about stance while sitting lately. I am breathing and speaking more from my belly and that starts with posture which is neither slouched forward or back.
Depends on the game. I'd say I have two modes of sitting when programming, one is passive and my muscles ache. Another is active, when I try to use belly muscles (abs?) to keep my posture etc but... When I fall deeply into thinking I will eventually release muscles and feel worse later.
I wonder if there could be an application that would encourage active sitting
This is what I was thinking about too. I thought that "Active" sitting was going to be something about making sure you're not slouching, but rather adjusting yourself every so often to make sure you're sitting up straight instead of slouching off the chair.
They mention reading as an example of active sitting despite the fact that it requires no more motion than changing the channel (or whatever the modern day equivalent is).
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/13872877251394751
Based on this report.
This article has nothing to do with sitting.
Original source:
https://news.uq.edu.au/2026-01-not-all-sitting-same-when-it-...
> "...Passive activities such as watching television have been linked to worse memory and cognitive skills, while ‘active sitting’ like playing cards or reading correlate with better brain health, researchers have found."
...Do these researchers even read this to themselves aloud before hitting publish? It's confounding that they would find "sitting" to be the active ingredient pushing the outcome differential. Obviously, if you remove the bodily posture from the action that the user is engaging in, you would observe the same outcome the researchers did—meaning sitting was not operative here (..duh).
Breaking news at 11: the brain works best when it’s actually used.
It's malice, not stupidity. They know people will click stuff that says sitting is good. Sounds controversial just to think about it.
Breaking news! Using the brain is better for brain health than not using it.
Next: Playing chess on one leg is better for brain health than sitting.
That this is the state of "science" is very disappointing, and whenever I see the domain sciencealert, am pretty much trained that it is going to be nonsense.
Sadly, other science publications seem to be following a not dissimilar trend.
Maybe in the future people will focus on solving problems some AGI can solve better to keep themselves in shape, like how exercise is a modern invention