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As health-conscious writers, we are careful to look after our body, eat healthy food and exercise daily for 30 minutes. So, following these guidelines, we think we are on our way to live to be a hundred.
Unfortunately, this is not the case. Far from it… Adding two or three hours of writing time to our 8-10 hours/day job pushes us over the health limit – this is also true for those who spend these hours in front of the TV by the way, but are writers, so we produce, and want to do so for as long as possible.
So let’s look at the reason why simply sitting long hours fattens us and bring diabetes type 2 as a bonus for our dedication.
Sitting down for prolonged periods without a break can slow the body’s processing of fats, glucose and other substances This increases the risk of developing chronic disease, and increases gain weight, with all the related health problems.
The absence of movement can also slow down our metabolic processes. When we are sitting down, our skeletal muscles, particularly in the lower limbs are not active.
When our muscles are prevented from contracting for prolonged periods, the body’s regulatory processes – such as the circulation and burning of glucose – are compromised.
This increases the risk of diabetes type 2, even if we take care of eating only healthy food.

Unfortunately, the 30 min daily session at the gym is not enough to counterbalance the damaging effects of long hours of sitting.
A U.K. study published this year in the Annals of Internal Medicine found that working at a desk for more than 11 hours a day increases your risk of heart disease by 67%, compared with those working standard seven- to eight-hour days.
Though these results have to be moderated by some factors such as :
• the participants’ exposure to food of low nutritional value,
• whether they worked in shifts (evidence shows shift workers are more susceptible to adverse health outcomes mainly as a result of disruption to the body’s normal processes),
• whether they smoked,
• the stressfulness of their job.

they still should ring the alarm bell for writers who add numerous desk hours to their day job.

The good news is, as health-conscious writers, we already stop to take a break every 50 mins to look after our back. It is also good for reducing metabolic slowdown and activate the body’s processing of fats, glucose, etc.

So now, in order to remain fit, we just have to reduce the time between two walking breaks to a break every 25 mins or so, rather than every 50 mins.
So breaks are actually a lifesaver, not a luxury, nor a sign of lack of productiveness, quite the opposite. By keeping the body healthy, we in effect increase our concentration abilities and our productivity.

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