What Sitting All Day Is Doing to Your Body

In this episode of Health Recoded, we break down why daily movement is essential for your health, metabolism, and longevity—and what happens to the body when you don’t move enough.

Most adults average around 5,000 steps per day, which falls into a sedentary range. Over time, this lack of movement can impact your muscles, joints, circulation, metabolism, and even brain health.

This episode explains the science of movement, how the body adapts to inactivity, and simple ways to start improving your daily movement without overcomplicating it.

We cover:

• The physiology of movement (muscles, bones, lymphatic system, and brain health)
• What happens with sedentary behavior and physical inactivity
• The difference between disuse vs overuse
• How many steps per day you actually need for health
• Practical nursing-based tips to increase daily movement

If you want to improve your energy, physical health, and long-term mobility, this is a great place to start.

Subscribe for more conversations that help you better understand your body. New episodes weekly.

Chapters

00:00 Intro 

01:16 How Much Do We Actually Move? (Step Count + Modern Lifestyle) 

02:55 The Science of Movement (Muscles, Metabolism, Brain Health) 

14:04 What Happens When You Don’t Move (Sedentary Lifestyle Effects) 

15:04 Disuse vs Overuse 

19:27 Simple Daily Movement Tips (Nurse Perspective) 

22:32 Key Takeaways

This content is for educational and informational purposes only and is not a substitute for guidance provided directly by your own medical practitioner.

Research & Resources:

• UCLA Health — Daily step count and health outcomes
• American Institute for Cancer Research — Global step averages
• Physical Activity & Health Outcomes (NIH)
• Sedentary Behavior & Disease Risk (NIH)

Links:

https://www.uclahealth.org/news/article/how-many-steps-do-you-need-day-see-health-benefits

https://www.aicr.org/news/globally-the-average-person-walks-about-5000-steps-per-day/

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4241367/

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12216464/

Topics covered: daily movement, sedentary lifestyle, step count, physical activity, metabolism, longevity, mobility, exercise for beginners, health education.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

If you're getting under 5,000 steps a day, your body is already adapting to a lower standard of health. Hi, I'm Alex, I'm your nurse, and today we're talking about why daily movement is essential for health and longevity. You've probably heard the phrase sitting is the new smoking. We all know how dangerous smoking can be. It leads to cancer, it can worsen your skin health, and it can lead to poor dental hygiene as well. But studies are showing that being sedentary can actually have negative effects on your health as well, if not as much as smoking. Most adults average around 4,000 to 5,000 steps per day, which is considered sedentary. We're driving in our car, we're sitting at desks or working remotely, and then going and sitting on our couch and relaxing at home. But we're doing that more than we're physically active nowadays or just up walking around. And this is not to place blame with the advent of modern society and car-centric communities. It makes sense that things have developed this way. But ultimately, this does lead to a negative impact on the body and then therefore our health. So today we're going to talk about why and what we can do about it. So we're going to talk a little bit about a background on movement to discuss some of the history, and then we're going to get into the anatomy and physiology of why movement is so important. So the human body was built for constant movement, and modern life has quietly taken that away. Humans evolved as endurance movers, not sedentary beings. We were out hunting or even gathering our food or moving and we were transient. We didn't always stay in one place. Anthropological data suggests that hunter-gatherer populations regularly walked 8,000 to 15,000 steps per day, often combined with lifting, carrying, climbing, and intermittent bursts of effort, such as hunting. Movement wasn't exercise, it was just survival. It was a way of life. It was how we found food, it was how we avoided danger, and it was how we interacted with our environment and each other. Even into early agricultural societies, though, daily life still required consistent physical labor, walking long distances, working on the land, carrying water, and this is with the further advent of cities and growth of these larger populations and civilizations that we know about. So the major shift has happened within the last hundred to 150 years with industrialization, cars replacing walking, desk-based jobs, and then now more remote and screen-based lifestyles, as well as our interactions and our connections and our hobbies are quietly getting taken away and putting being put more on a screen. So for the first time in human history, movement is no longer required, it's optional. And biologically, our bodies haven't adapted to that. So if we dig into the anatomy and physiology of why movement is so important, I'm going to talk about some of our key systems here so that we can see how walking in general, but movement overall really improves and affects how it affects the body systems. So starting with muscles, this one's pretty easy to understand, but muscle contraction improves glucose uptake in specific transporters independent of insulin. And this helps to maintain mitochondrial density, which improves energy production, and it also prevents insulin resistance, which improves glucose control after your meals. And this is a point that I wanted to make. Walking significantly helps lower blood glucose or blood sugar levels and improves insulin sensitivity, particularly after a meal. So if you've eaten a meal, then you go and you walk 10 to 15 minutes afterwards. This allows the muscles to actually use that glucose and that food for energy and it prevents post-meal spikes or postprandial spikes in your blood sugar. And so this is an effective, low-risk way for actively managing blood sugar levels and often bringing down, or sorry, often bringing out benefits within minutes. So how does walking affect the blood sugar? It increases the glucose uptake. So the muscles consume sugar from the bloodstream for energy during movement. And then the cells become more efficient at using available insulin for up to 24 hours afterwards. And because of that, it reduces those post-meal spikes and it prevents long-term complications as well if you're if you're keeping up accurate or adequate levels of walking. Or I just should say movement in general. So timing after meals is generally more effective at controlling the aftermeal blood sugar than before. So walk after your meal as opposed to before it. And the duration is like five to ten minutes. It doesn't have to be much. Like if you eat a meal and you go take a lap or two around your neighborhood, that's perfect. This can have a very positive effect. Muscle isn't just for strength, ultimately, it is a metabolic organ that directly regulates blood sugar and energy use. So activating our muscles can help to activate these other systems so that we can then therefore ideally have more regulation within these systems. And this also leads to bones as well. So bones respond to mechanical load. The movement stimulates osteoblast activity, which builds the bone density. So remember the osteoblasts are those cells that help to build up the muscle. So if we're activating and stimulating those cells, then they are going to then help build the bone and make it stronger. So then sedentary behavior on the opposite side of that is going to increase the risk of osteopenia or osteoporosis, which is essentially just the breakdown of your bone. So if you're more sedentary and you're getting less activation of those bone-building cells, then your bones are not going to be as dense and therefore as strong. Then therefore they're going to be more at risk for breakdown. And this is why movement throughout your life, but particularly as you start to age, is so important because we can help to build up those bones and ideally avoid any fractures, ideally in your legs, in your hips, really anywhere, but as you age. So bones need stress to stay strong. Without movement, the body starts to break down faster, then it rebuilds. So moving through on to the brain and the nervous system, movement increases BDNF, which is brain-derived neurotrophic factor, which improves your neuroplasticity. We've talked about this a little bit, but BDNF is it essentially helps to improve your cognition and your memory, particularly as you get older, and it can actually help to lead to a reduction in the occurrence of dementia and Alzheimer's as you age. So movement for the brain and the nervous system also improves dopamine and serotonin release, which helps with our mood regulation. There is a process behind this as well. So if you're ever feeling, they say you can't outthink a bad mindset, right? So get outside, go for a walk, you're getting the vitamin D from the sun, you're getting the dopamine and the serotonin released, you're getting the fresh air. But as you're walking, there's something that happens with the eye, your eyesight, and I forget specifically what it's called, but the movement of like actually moving forward signals to your brain that you're moving through this emotion and this exact this anxiety. And this is kind of what I've talked about with some of the nervous system and the emotional regulation stuff. You're signaling to your brain and your nervous system that you are going somewhere and you're doing something, and it can actually help it to better regulate. And so this improves cognition, stress resilience, and emotional regulation. So movement is one of the fastest ways to regulate your nervous system because it directly changes your brain chemistry. So our cardiovascular system, walking activity in general obviously helps improve the cardiovascular system. It improves the endothelial function, so the blood vessels, the cells, the tissues, all of that, circulation and oxygen delivery, and it reduces the risk of hypertension and heart disease. So because you're getting up and you're walking, you're forcing the blood, you're sorry, you're forcing the heart to pump more, and so therefore it's pumping more blood. And because it's pumping more blood, oxygen is in the blood, and so therefore it's pumping more effectively, it's pumping more fluidly throughout the body, and because it's working more efficiently and you're forcing it to work, it's going to work more effectively in the future. So I hope that makes sense. You get up, you move, you activate your system. The heart has to keep up, it has to pump the blood and the fluid and the oxygen through your body, and because you continually do that, it's able to maintain and endure that stress in the future. So it strengthens the heart muscle, it reduces blood pressure, and it increases LDL HDL, which is the good cholesterol, and it lowers the LDL, which is the bad cholesterol. So again, it improves circulation, reduces inflammation, and it aids. Sorry, excuse me. And then as a result, it actually aids in weight management. So because our heart is more effectively pumping, because of the activity we're putting it through, this helps to reduce the risk of heart attacks and also strokes. So strokes are clots that get thrown to the brain. And so if we're able to effectively, if our heart is able to effectively pump, then that blood is not going to be nearly as stagnant, and therefore you're not going to have as many clots. If you don't have as many clots, they don't get thrown to your brain for a stroke or your lungs for pulmonary embolism. And that's all good. Studies have shown that adults who walk 6 to 9,000 steps daily have roughly a 40 to 50 percent lower risk of cardiovascular disease compared to those walking only 2,000 steps a day. And a lot of people are not getting as many steps as they think they are. So some key ways walking boosts cardiovascular health. I'm gonna summarize here. Strengthening the heart, lowering blood pressure, and improves circulation, reduces chronic inflammation and stress, improves your lipid profile with the cholesterols that we talked about, and then weight management because you're burning calories, you're aiding in reduction of body fat, and this helps also reduce the workload on the heart.

unknown 10:29

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 10:30

Um on the opposite side of that, the lymphatic system movement, particularly inverted movement, so things like yoga are really good for improving your lymphatic drainage. Your lymphatic system, as we talked about in the immune system episode, it doesn't have valves like the blood vessels, and so it doesn't pump in the same way. So if you have the heart and then you have all the vessels and the um gosh, the blood what am I trying to the veins and the arteries. So you have all the vessels that are coming out of that and it's pumping, right? The heart is very strong. Heart tissue is very dense and very effective and very contractile, meaning it contracts a lot. And because of that, it's very effective at pushing the fluid through the body. For your lymphatic system, it's not like that. It's you've got the lymph nodes, which are little deposits in specific spots. There's some in your groin, there's some at the back of your knees, your armpits, things like that. And those are great for filtering and then holding the stuff that we don't want going throughout the body. But the lymphatic system itself doesn't actually have valves to help push any fluid through. So in your blood vessels, you'll have the vessel, and then there'll actually be a little valve to help push that blood through because again, we don't want clots, but the vessels for um the lymphatic system are just sitting there. So you'll have a node and then the vessel and then a node and then the vessel. And so there's nothing really pumping it through. So movement, physical movement really helps that. So jumping up and down or doing an inversion where your heart is above your head, um, that really helps because it helps to um switch the flow of the lymphatic fluid. But just movement in general and walking in general can really help to improve the flow because, again, there's no central pump. So the lymphatic system relies on muscle contraction and body movement to there help balance the fluid and then clear the waist. Um, and then your GI tract. I want to talk about your GI tract. When walking, or sorry, walking increases GI motility by stimulating increased bowel contractions, muscle movement, and blood flow according to multiple studies. But essentially, so it's kind of like the heart, because the heart's pumping, you're getting more blood flow, and that's gonna activate all these systems, your muscles, your brain, your gut. And so, because all of the um intestines are essentially muscles themselves, because it's smooth muscle, the movement is going to help stimulate the physical movement of your body, is gonna help stimulate the physical movement in your gut. So um this low-intensity activity promotes faster, more efficient digestion and helps alleviate constipation, bloating, and gas by aiding in what we call peristalsis, which is that squeezing contractile motion in the gut to help push food and digest. So even a short walk activates as an immediate stimulant for the digestive tract. And it stimulates the rhythmic muscular contractions that move food and waste through the intestines. That's peristalsis. And then regular light walking can significantly alleviate chronic constipation and trapped gas because we're getting that movement so things aren't just sitting there. So you kind of get this idea because we're moving, we're not allowing things to sit stagnant in our body, whether it's lymphatic fluid or something in your gut between food or gas or in your heart, could be clots. So, what happens when the body breaks down over time? Disuse versus overuse. I have seen this happen so many times. A patient will get admitted, typically elderly, and the family will say, We don't understand. He was up working last year, he went and played golf every day, and then he retired, and now he's like this. And he's bedridden, incapacitated, limited mobility, limited cognition. And in healthcare, we see this pattern all the time. Someone is super active and then they stop moving, and within months or years, their entire system declines. Unfortunately, disuse will kill you sooner than overuse. For most people, disuse is far more dangerous than overuse. And I don't say this to scare you, only to make you aware of the importance of the point I'm trying to make. Your body is not breaking down because you're getting older. It's breaking down because you stopped moving. And I have actually personally experienced this in my own life. When I was a nurse working at the bedside, I would be lifting 200 plus bound patients way above my own body weight. And I was using appropriate mechanics and lifting either with a lift or with somebody else, but I was up walking on the unit on average, 6,000 steps a day. I'd come home and have at least six or seven thousand steps without breaking a sweat. And then I started working telehealth. And if I didn't get up and make a point to get up and walk away from my computer and go outside and take a walk, I would get maybe 2,000 steps on average a day. And that's pretty typical for most people working at the working um remote jobs, but also at a desk. And I was still being active. I was still going to the gym. I was still going doing my hobbies. I was still playing pickleball. I was still going on walks throughout the day. But I began to have this intractable back pain, particularly on my left side in the middle of my back and on my trap. And I could not figure it out. I'm super physically active and I hadn't done anything differently. And I wound up having to actually go to a physical therapist to get it alleviated because I would try to hydrate, I would take pain meds, I would try to switch positions, I would stretch, I would get up and move, and it would not go away. And I'd never experienced anything like this before. Like I had had back pain, back tension working at the hospital, you know, I had to go get a massage, I'd be okay, but nothing I didn't prove this. So I wound up going and getting dry needling. If you've never done dry needling, it's really cool. I can do an episode on it. But it's kind of like acupuncture, but they go deeper, they go into the muscle. So instead of just being on that surface layer of your skin, they're actually deeper into the muscle to help stimulate a contraction to allow that lactic acid and that ACTH, I do believe, um, it's the chemical, essentially just to allow the muscle contraction to happen, to allow the muscle to release. And that was the only way that I found relief. So I was asking this guy, um, why I was talking to him like clinician to clinician, right? Like, why is this going on? What is happening? He was like, Well, what have you added that's new? Because if this is new, then whatever is new that you've added is likely the culprit. So I was telling him, Well, I started a new job maybe four months ago, XYZ. And he's like, It's probably that. I was like, I'm sitting down, like it can't be that bad. Like I've been up walking at the bedside lifting really heavy patients for most of my career. Like, this it's not this. So I went home and after the next over the next week I started paying attention to when the pain was spiking, and sure enough, it was when I was sitting in my chair. So, long story, short answer, I get up and I move at least once an hour, if not every other hour, because the body adapts quickly and it adapts in the direction that you train it. And if you stop moving, your body is going to learn how to do less. And my body did not like it. So it's it's tricky. It's hard to know if you're moving too much or you're moving too little, but I would often argue that you're moving too much, sorry, moving too little or not moving correctly. And that's another thing that I've had to address is stability over flexibility and strength, which I can do in another episode as well. But long story short, my back pain has improved with small adjustments and basically just improving my own um movement and mobility throughout the day instead of just getting it after work or in large segments. I go throughout the day, and I'll talk about this in some of my um daily movement tips. But some science behind disuse before we move on. Muscle atrophy begins in as little as one to two weeks. The VO2 max declines rapidly with inactivity. Excuse me. And this is the amount of oxygen that your body is needing in order to use or sorry, in order to function. Um, and then reduced movement worsens insulin sensitivity, circulation, and then joint mobility. So all of these things start to tighten up. Your body has to work harder and harder to regulate all these systems that I talked about. And therefore, because it's actually working harder to do basic things, it starts to break down. So again, if you stop moving, your body learns how to do less because the body adapts quickly and it adapts in the direction that you train it. So my nursing tips for daily movement: aim for at least 150 minutes of moderate intensity walking per week. So I always advocate for walking because it's the easiest exercise that you can do. But ultimately, I always say this: the best exercise to do is the one you will do. If you like walking, go walk. If you're a runner, go run. You will not catch me running. I didn't run to codes, I will not run for my free time. Um, but I love lifting weights, that's movement. I love dancing, that's movement. If you like pickleball or swimming, whatever it is. But I'm gonna be speaking specifically about walking here because we're talking about steps and being sedentary, and walking is so easy. But insert activity pretty much anywhere in here, and you can get the idea. Um, so small walks intermittently throughout the day, 20 minutes at a time, 10 to 20 minute walks. I go out in my neighborhood probably three or four times a day, and I do um I do two laps, which equates to about 20 minutes, and that gets me pretty close to 10,000 steps, if not right at a day. So it takes approximately 2,000 steps for the average person to walk a mile. So 10,000 steps would mean you walked close to five miles. I think for me it's just a little bit under. While 10,000 steps is a common goal, health benefits can start lower with significant reductions in mortality risk between 6,000 and 10,000 steps. So when I'm counseling my patients, typically for lifestyle and weight loss, I advocate for at least 8,000. But if 6,000 is all that you can manage for some days, that is better than less. So 10,000 steps isn't a magic number, but it is a useful target for overall activity. So how are we gonna get that? Take the stairs when you're going somewhere or park further away so you're forcing yourself to have to walk further. Um, get a simple step tracker. When I started, I got one that was like 20 bucks off of Amazon and it didn't really track much else besides steps. Um, pair trackers with your friends to help motivate yourself if you're competitive. Um, or set a timer if you work um from home. I mean, gosh, if you work from anywhere, set a timer for an hour or every other hour to go out and walk for 10 to 20 minutes. You can also pair it with an activity, pair it with a phone call, or listen to an audiobook, or go walk in the evenings to see a sunset. I live in the desert and the sunsets are the best at 7 p.m. So I will purposefully save one to two laps to go outside and walk. And get my daily hit of desert dopamine before the evening's out. Um, also get good shoes. Get good attire if there's some shoes that you've always wanted or some really comfortable shoes that you like wearing, that'll be much more it's kind of a brain hack to get yourself to want to go do the walking. So small habits compound over time to create a lifestyle. If you can keep up these small habits, then ideally it will help create a healthier lifestyle for you. So my key takeaways for today, the average person is not getting enough steps daily to meet the minimum need for movement for healthy functioning bodies. For most people, disuse is far more dangerous than overuse. We don't get sick because we age, we get sick because we stopped moving. The goal is 10,000 steps daily, but improved health outcomes do start closer to 6,000. I always recommend for higher, but start where you can and move up from there. And remember, the best exercise to do is the one you will do. I hope today's conversation helped, as always. I have personally seen such an improvement in my own health with focusing on consistent daily movement. I advocate for this practice because it's affected me so much in my life in such a positive way. It's improved my own mentality and mentation, and it's definitely helped me achieve my weight loss goals, but it's become just a way of functioning. So I advocate for this not to shame anybody or tell you that you're not doing enough. I do it because I want you to feel better and I see people struggle, and I just want to help. So if this taught you something and it helped, please consider liking or subscribing to the channel. If you have any questions, you can always comment below, or you can follow me on Instagram at Health Recoded Podcast. I will respond to comments and DMs there. Thank you guys always for listening, and I'll see you guys next time.