No. Your Brain Isn’t Rotting at Your Desk

You Should Know: It’s quite well-established that sitting is not good for us. Too much time spent in a chair is associated with an increased risk of obesity, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and other chronic health conditions. But it turns out that sitting — depending on what you’re doing — may not be so terrible for our brains. 

Going Deeper: New research suggests that how you spend sedentary time matters more for brain health than sitting itself. In a review of 85 studies, researchers found that prolonged passive sitting — like watching television — was far more consistently linked to worse cognitive function. Among the 43 studies examining TV viewing, 65% reported negative cognitive associations. By contrast, of the 58 studies that included “active” sedentary activities such as reading, puzzles, or card games, just 8.6% found similar effects.

The Takeaway: “The key message is that not all sitting is the same,” David Capone, PhD, director of neuropsychology at Tufts Medical Center, told SELF. If your job involves activities like reading, writing, coding, or designing, all those hours spent in your office chair may not be as bad for your brain as you think. 

Bottom Line: A sedentary lifestyle isn’t good for you; that much is fact. But we can take solace in this evidence, knowing that when we’re chained to our laptops for hours, at least our brains aren’t rotting.