Are you an office worker or a couch potato who sits for more than six hours a day? Then you’re a potential candidate for the next human to be buried six feet under the ground because you’re at risk of having a heart disease, cancer and other ailments that will shave off many years of your quality life.

With the advent of new technologies such as TV, desktops, tablets and smartphones, and the ongoing trend of desk jobs, humans are sitting down more than ever before in history. Humans today sit for an average of 9.3 hours a day, spending more time than sleeping (7.7 hours).

What makes it alarming is: our bodies weren’t built for it which makes it the most dangerous things that humans do aside from smoking. It’s totally a life-killer that we must not ignore.

1. Sitting increases risk of death up to 40%

Employees who have a desk job, spend approximately 9.3 hours of sitting whole day. Sadly, sitting for 6 or more hours per day makes you up to 40% more likely to die within 15 years than someone who sits less than 3 hours. Even if you exercise.

So even if you exercise for an hour or eat healthy foods but spend your day sitting, it will do very little to keep you from dying young or become overweight. Why? Because exercising is only effective if you DON’T SPEND THE WHOLE DAY SITTING.

So you might think now that you have a desk job so you need to sit all-day. Then… you should stand while doing your job (Common sense? Just read more below to know the answer).

2. Your body goes into a meltdown the moment you sit down

Basically, as soon you sit down, your body goes into a meltdown because the electrical activity in your leg muscles shuts off completely. This means that sitting expends almost no energy and it’s the reason (maybe?) why some of government officials/employees are obese (and crooks).

Between the year 1980 and 2000, exercise rates stayed the same while sitting time increase by 8 percent and obesity doubled. So we can tell that the year between 1980 and 2000 is the ERA OF GREAT OBESITY that continues until now (LOL).

As soon as you sit: Calorie burning drops to 1 calorie per minute, enzymes that help break down fat drop by almost 90% and after 2 more hours of sitting your good cholesterol drops by 20%.

3. It wrecks your body that leads to physical ailments

People with sitting jobs have a higher risk of heart disease and cancer than someone with standing job. In fact, you are less healthy if you have a desk job than that guy who just stand and waits for a customer. A prolonged lack of activity wrecks your body upon sitting and increases blood pressure and blood sugar which means that you have good chances to have DIABETES (Congrats!).

If you spend the whole day sitting, insulin (the one that absorbs sugary substances in your blood) effectiveness drops 24% and risk of diabetes increases sharply. Sitting for most of the day increases the risk of heart disease just like smoking (so if you sit for a long time, you are increasing the risk of dying so soon).

Many of the most common killers and illnesses (high blood pressure, heart disease, diabetes and even cancer) are highly linked to what researchers have labeled as “sitting disease”.

4. Extra sitting outside of work makes it worse for you to die early

A study published by American Journal of Epidemiology, found out that those who sit for a prolonged period have a much higher mortality rate to die early which means that the extra sitting outside of work makes it worse. It is the extra sitting time at home that is literally can kill you.

So if you’re a couch potato, you better get off the couch while you’re at home because those who sit three hours or more per day watching television are 64% more likely to die from heart disease (if you’re that kind of person, good luck) while an extra hour of watching TV correlates to an 11% higher risk of death.

Interestingly, those who sit in front of the TV 3 hours per day and exercises are just as fat as those who don’t.

5. The human body wasn’t designed to sit for long periods of time

Yes you read it right; our body was not built to stay in one place for long periods of time. Long before we have BPO’s, humans were all toiling in the fields and working in factories, obesity was nearly nonexistent (unlike today). Studies show that in order to remain healthy, you must minimize your sitting time while exercising and having a healthy diet.

If you just exercise and miss the other two, then it will not have an effect. So remind yourself this formula: minimize sitting time + exercise + healthy diet = longer life (only if you will not die in natural occurrences, accidents, et ce tera). In a recent study conducted, researchers fed subjects the same amount of calories and forbid them from exercising. The result: not everyone gained weight.

Not everyone gained weight because the subjects moved a lot more during the day (they just don’t sit the whole day). Instead of elevator, they would take the stairs and pace around. While sitting they would fidget, so this means that fidgeting can actually save your life.

So, in conclusion, even if you find yourself sitting all day because of your office job; get a standing desk for yourself, pace around, remember to stand once an hour, get about 30 minutes of activity per day, do some fidgeting, reduce your sitting time and don’t forget to have a healthy diet and exercise daily.