Get up, Stand up

People who are too sedentary, even if they do exercise frequently, are more likely to develop heart disease, cancer and diabetes, a new report says.

It's well known that too much sitting time is bad for our health. “What we didn't know was whether the sitting time and health relationship was because people were also exercising poorly,” said senior author Dr. David Alter of the Toronto Rehabilitation Institute-University Health Network and Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences, in a phone interview.

It turns out, he and his colleagues say, that sedentary time and exercise time are two distinct factors when it comes to health outcomes.

“Another way of saying it is just because one does their 30 to 60 minutes of exercise per day doesn't ensure their health,” Alter said. “These are two distinct factors, we need both, we need exercise and need to be sitting less.”

The researchers analyzed 47 studies that tracked groups of people as they reported roughly how much time they spent sitting around and not expending much energy, as well as how often they exercised.

People who were the most sedentary were more likely to be diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, breast, colon, ovarian and other cancers, and cardiovascular disease than people who spent less time sitting.

They were also 24 percent more likely to die during the studies than those who spent the least time sitting.

The pattern tended to be more pronounced for people who also reported less time exercising, the authors reported in the Annals of Internal Medicine. But regardless of physical activity level, prolonged sedentary time was independently associated with bad health outcomes.

The studies “all seemed to show a similar result,” Alter said. “There is a strong and consistent link between sitting time and a host of diseases.”

Strategies for encouraging people to sit less are different than those used to promote exercise, he said.

“There are very simple things we can do, every half an hour get up for two to three minutes,” he said. “You do that and that's already nearly an hour less sitting per day.”

Standing burns twice as many calories as sitting, he noted. People can also stand during commercial breaks while watching TV or during the last 15 minutes of a sporting event, he said.

These strategies don't replace daily exercise, Alter stressed.

None of the studies in the review were randomized controlled trials, so researchers can't yet say that sitting directly causes disease, Alter said.

There will need to be considerably more research done to fill in those gaps and help develop guidelines for sedentary behavior, like there are for physical activity, Neville Owen, program head of Behavioral & Generational Change at Baker IDI Heart and Diabetes Institute in Melbourne, Australia, wrote in an editorial published with the study.

Even among adults who meet the public health guideline – that is, they walk at least 30 min a day – “those who sit for prolonged periods have elevated health risk biomarkers,” Owen told Reuters Health by email. “However, there is insufficient evidence yet to know whether very highly active people who sit for prolonged periods are also at risk.”

Regardless, sitting time was most important for nonexercisers, Alter said.

“Those that do not exercise and who sit a lot, the health hazards are accelerated quite markedly,” Alter said.

“If there is a priority population that I tune myself into, it's the nonexercisers high-sitting-time people.”

Are you awake?

What Is Spiritual Enlightenment or Spiritual Awakening?

A definition of spiritual enlightenment or spiritual awakening is hard to pin down. This is, in part, because "spiritual enlightenment" and "spiritual awakening" have been used in so many ways to describe so many things, similar to the way in which "love" is used to describe everything from a preference for ice cream to a merging with everything. And it is also becausespiritual enlightenment and spiritual awakening are such rich and complex experiences that they are innately hard to define.

Some definitions are very specific and narrow. One such definition for spiritual enlightenment is the complete dissolution of one's identity as a separate self with no trace of the egoic mind remaining. This sets the bar very high and means that very few people qualify as enlightened.

The opposite approach is to say that everyone is enlightened, that there is only awake consciousness. In this view, it's only a question of whether this natural awakeness has been recognized or not. Of course, when a word describes everything or everyone, it loses some of its usefulness. If everyone is enlightened, then why even talk about it?

Combining perspectives on spiritual enlightenment

Perhaps there's a definition that includes both of these perspectives, which recognizes that consciousness is always awake and enlightened, but the amount of awakeness, or aware consciousness, that is present in any moment can vary. This definition acknowledges that there's a difference in the amount of awakeness, or enlightened consciousness, that different people experience or that one person experiences at different times but still suggests that the potential for full awareness or becoming enlightened is the same for everybody. If every apparent individual consciousness is infinite in its potential, then each can also be infinite both in its capacity to expand or awaken and in its capacity to contract or identify with a narrow or limited experience.

If all consciousness is made of the same essential awareness and light, and if everyone has an equal potential for enlightenment, then all expressions of consciousness are equally valid and valuable. Everyone truly is a Buddha or enlightened being, at least in potential. So defining enlightenment in many ways now makes sense, depending on what is being pointed to. One may use the word enlightenment to point to the state of self-realization beyond the ego or to point to the innate potential for this realization in all of us.

As for differentiating between the words enlightenment and awakening, "enlightenment" implies a more finished and constant state of realization, while "awakening" has more of the active quality of a verb and therefore suggests a movement or shift in consciousness. An awakening may be defined as a sudden increase in the overall amount of consciousness an individual is experiencing. There can be small awakenings and bigger awakenings. Not only does consciousness have unlimited potential for the amount of awakeness, but it also has an unlimited potential to shift in any way, at any moment. Consciousness can and sometimes does shift from contracted states of fear, anger, or hurt to expanded states of peace and joy in an instant. Unfortunately, it can also shift in the other direction. Consciousness has no fixed state.

What about the spiritual awakening happening now?

As it is being defined here, a spiritual awakening is a sudden expansion or shift in consciousness, especially a more dramatic one (we don't usually refer to a minor realization as a spiritual awakening). Enlightenment, on the other hand can be used to mark a particular level of realization or awakeness, even if the exact definition varies depending on who is using the word, as it does with every word.

What really matters is what your awareness is doing right now. How is your consciousness appearing or shifting in this moment? Are you realizing more of your experience and Essence right now? Or are you contracting and limiting your awareness with thoughts and identification? Is any shifting happening from reading these words?

Enlightenment or awakening is a profound mystery, and the best definition may be found in the actual experience of your own shifts in consciousness. Just as it's more nourishing to eat an apple than read about one, so it can be more rewarding to explore the movements of your own awareness than to try to understand these things mentally. While definitions of such things can be helpful, it can also be beneficial to not have too many concepts, which could interfere with your actual experience. It's a good thing that language isn't so fixed or defined when it comes to spiritual unfoldment. Maybe the best definition of enlightenment is no definition. Then there is only what is found in your own direct experience of awareness.

Get Healthy Together

Sometimes it’s near impossible to take that first step toward a healthier lifestyle. For one, the first week after a person quits smoking is fraught with nicotine withdrawal symptoms, like irritability, trouble sleeping, and a cloudy mind. Many people fear that initial stage, and there are now support systems online and in person that help people get through. A person’s partner, however, may be the best influence in stoking a healthier lifestyle, according to a new study.

Most people spend a lot of time with their partners, making it easy to influence one another into picking up certain habits. These habits can sometimes be bad, but they don’t always have to be. Studies have shown that people who exercise with a friend tend to have more fun with their workout, and they’ll also push themselves harder if the other person is more fit. If this is what happens when we workout with friends, imagine what can happen when working out, or adopting a healthier lifestyle, with a partner.

Researchers from University College London looked at data on 3,722 couples, either married or cohabitating, who were all over age 50 and participating in the English Longitudinal Study on Ageing. They found that people were more likely to quit smoking, exercise, or lose weight if their partner also worked toward those same goals. For example, they found that 50 percent of women were able to quit smoking if they had a partner who had also quit. In comparison, 17 percent of women whose partners were nonsmokers were able to quit, while eight percent of women whose partners smoked quit.

Making lifestyle changes can make a huge difference to our health and cancer risk, and this study shows that when couples make those changes together they are more likely to be successfu. Getting some support can help people take up good habits.

Adopting better habits not only reduces these peoples’ risks of preventable diseases, such as type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and cancer, which can all develop from smoking, and a lack of exercise and a healthy diet, but it can also strengthen the relationship. Exercising together, for example, pushes a couple to challenge themselves more with their workout. This stimulates physiological arousal, such as sweaty hands and a fast pulse, which mirror the same physiological activities as romantic attraction. On top of that, it also gives a couple one more thing to do together.

When a couple works out together, the actual exercise itself can physically and emotionally have a positive impact. Both partners come away with feelings of synchronicity, cooperative spirit, and shared passion. Then you throw in some spicy endorphins and it can be a real power trip for the relationship.