Cut down on sitting down if you want to live longer

Every week we're told of different ways to live longer and now it has been suggested that standing up more could give you an extra two years of life.

How long do you sit for each day? Sometimes seven, maybe even eight hours per day? Well according to researchers over in the US, cutting down on sitting down could lengthen your life by a whole two years.

But how long do they expect you to stand for? The researchers suggest that you reduce your sitting time to less than three hours a day. That's right, less than three hours. So if you work in an office you might want to look for a taller desk…

The researchers then go on to say that watching less than two hours of TV everyday might add an extra 1.4 years to your life. So basically, they want you to get off your ass instead of sprawling out on the couch in front of the TV for hours on end. Sure with standing more and less TV you could see an extra 3.4 years added to your life.

However, even the researchers go on to say that their findings don’t necessarily mean that someone who leads a more active lifestyle can expect to live 1.4 years longer than a couch potato.

"Given that the results from objective monitoring of sedentary time in NHANES (National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey) has indicated that adults spend an average of 55% of their day engaged in sedentary pursuits, a significant shift in behaviour change at the population level is required to make demonstrable improvements in life expectancy," they conclude.