“坐如钟”不如坐立不安

For office workers who spend their days working on a computer at a traditional desk, it is fairly old news by now that the medical profession considers sitting for hours a health hazard akin¹ to smoking a pack of cigarettes every day. In fact, a number of studies have found that sitting increases risk of death by all causes even if you have a fairly active workout schedule outside the office. So the question becomes: what can you do about it?

医学界早就认为，对整天对着传统办公桌上的电脑工作的上班族来说，久坐带来的健康风险类似于每天抽一包烟。实际上，许多研究表明，久坐加大了各类起因的死亡风险，即便你在办公室外面积极锻炼。那么问题来了：你能做些什么？

Few of us have stand-up desks, which is the ideal solution, provided you do not stand all day without taking a break. For those who must sit, an intriguing² insight into a possible remedy was included in a study published recently in The American Journal of Preventive Medicine. It looked at 12,778 women in the UK who were followed for 12 years.

我们很少有人有立式办公桌，那是完美的解决办法——只要你抽空休息一下，而不是连续站一整天。对那些必须坐的人来说，《美国预防医学杂志》(The American Journal of Preventive Medicine)最近发表的一份研究报告为可能的解决办法提供了耐人寻味的见解。该项研究对英国1.2778万名妇女进行了为期12年的跟踪研究。

Like previous studies, it found that sitting was associated with a 43 per cent increase in the risk of all-cause mortality, regardless of age. But there was a puzzling group that was not affected³ by the time spent in their chairs: for those women who sat all day but also fidgeted a lot, the risk of death actually declined.

与早先的研究一样，该报告发现，久坐与全因死亡风险（无论多大年纪）增长43%有关。但令人困惑的是，有一组研究对象没有受到她们坐在椅子上的时间的影响，因为这些女性虽然整天坐着，但她们总是在忙活着什么，死亡风险实际上下降了。

Could fidgeting at your desk really protect you against heart attacks, even when going to the gym does not? When I put this question to the lead author of the paper, Gareth Hagger-Johnson at UCL’s department of epidemiology and public health, he acknowledged that one limitation of the study was that it depended on the women self-reporting their fidgeting time. Dr Hagger-Johnson also said researchers now need a “better objective measure of fidgeting”.

在座位上忙活真的能保护你不会得心脏病吗，即便在你去健身房都起不了什么作用的情况下？当我向该报告的主要作者、伦敦大学学院(UCL)流行病学和公共卫生系的加雷思哈格-约翰逊(Gareth Hagger-Johnson)提出这个问题时，他承认，该研究的一个局限性在于，它取决于这些女性自己报告的忙活时间。哈格-约翰逊还表示，研究人员现在需要“衡量忙活的更佳客观指标”。

It turns out that science has actually looked at this question: fidgeting is known to research boffins as “non-exercise activity thermogenesis” or Neat. James Levine, a specialist in obesity⁴ at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota has written several papers on fidgeting.

事实上，科学界已经关注到这个问题：忙活被科研人员称为“非运动性热量消耗”(Neat)。位于明尼苏达州罗切斯特的梅奥诊所(Mayo Clinic)的肥胖病专家詹姆斯莱文(James Levine)就忙忙碌碌撰写了数篇文章。

Dr Levine, author of a recently published book about the dangers of sitting called Get Up!, says studies indicate that people fidget because the brain is signalling to the body to move around more. When they are in an environment that blocks that urge — an office, for instance — “you will not move but fidget”.

莱文医生最近围绕久坐风险发表了一本题为《站起来！》(Get Up!)的图书。他表示，研究表明，人们之所以坐立不安，是因为大脑暗示身体要走动走动。当他们身处无法走动的环境中，比如办公室，“你不能走动，只能忙这忙那”。

The key takeaway of the UK study and others is that small movements that do not amount to physical exercise can be protective to otherwise sedentary office workers.

英国和其他研究的关键见解在于，算不上体育运动的小幅活动可以保护久坐的办公室员工。

Dr Levine suggests keeping small hand weights on your desk to pump up and down at idle moments. He says another good strategy is to put a red dot on your office phone as a reminder⁵ to stand up for a moment whenever you finish a phone call.

莱文医生建议在你的办公桌上放上小哑铃以便在空暇时间举一举。他说，另一个好办法是在你的办公室电话上涂上一个红点，以提醒你无论什么时候打完电话都要站一会。

One California manufacturer is now experimenting with adding “fidget bars” underneath⁶ school desks, which allows seated students to move their legs idly while listening in class. For the more adventurous⁷, some fitness equipment makers⁸ are designing innovative⁹ devices that look like truncated¹⁰ bicycle pedals that fit under your desk and let you move your feet while seated.

加州一家制造商现在正尝试在学校课桌下方加上“抖腿杠”，让坐在椅子上的学生在听课的同时随意活动他们的双腿。更具开创性的是，一些健身设备制造商设计出一种创新设备，它看起来就像是截断的自行车脚踏板，可以放在你的桌子下方，让你在坐的时候活动双脚。

Personal tech such as the Apple and Polar smartwatches even remind you “it’s time to move” after a fixed¹¹ interval¹².

苹果(Apple)和Polar智能手表等个人科技产品甚至会每隔一段时间提醒你“是时候动一动了”。

For those of us compelled to sit down all day, there is now scientific evidence of a small but effective way to reduce the damage caused by our sedentary lifestyles.

对我们这些被迫整天坐着的人来说，现在有科学证据表明，有一种简单而有效的方式可以降低久坐的危害。