Are you sitting down? That is what someone usually asks before they give you bad news. This time the bad news is that sitting down itself might be killing you. According to research by the Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Louisiana, if you sit for most of the day you are 54% more likely to die from a heart attack, and according to research gathered by Medical Billing and Coding, you are 40% more likely to die within 15 years if you sit more than 6 hours per day than someone who sits less than 3 hours a day. That percentage does not change, even if you regularly exercise!

Why? Scientists are not completely sure. What they do know is that the enzymes that help break up fat drop by 90% and therefore the calories that your body is burning drops to 1 per minute immediately after you sit down. To make things worse, the good cholesterol level in your body drops by 20% after you have been sitting for 2 hours.

Now what? Most American professional jobs involve long hours of sitting. So, what are we supposed to do, quit our jobs and go become lumberjacks? Fortunately, that is not the only answer. A popular solution that has been discussed about in the media a lot lately has been to use a stand up desk. As the name implies, a stand up desk allows you to work at your computer without a chair. You can stand, wiggle, walk in place or even do jumping jacks while you work. As strange as it might sound, many famous people worked at standing desks including Thomas Jefferson, Ernest Hemmingway, Virginia Woolf, Leonardo da Vinci, and even Donald Rumsfeld.

Stand up desks can cost anywhere from $150 to $2,000! However, there are plenty of tutorials online to help you convert your existing desk to a stand up desk or build one from scratch.

But my feet hurt… There are many reasons why you might not want to or you might not be able to stand at your desk. You do not have to completely switch immediately. Stand as long as you can until you have to take a break. Then, once you are rested, do it again. A gentler approach is to stand for an hour a day. Then, each day add more time in 15 ? 60 minute increments until you are able to stand all day or as long as you are personally able to.
Here is an awesome web app to help you keep track of how long you stand each day. Of course, any time that you change your physical activity you should discuss it with your doctor first. Also, if you are committed to it and you do have foot pain, anti-fatigue mats can be purchased at many office supply and discount stores.

If you make the switch to standing, it can be tiring at first. However, those statistics are downright frightening. If standing up could make that large of a difference in our health and life expectancy it might just be worth our effort.

Graphic by Medical Billing and Coding via Mashable.