We all know that it is important not to have a too sedentary lifestyle, and also to exercise while working sitting on a desk.
The many activities to be carried out and the work that is also done from home today make regular movement difficult: and being too still, unfortunately, it can be enormously harmful for health.
The sedentary style kills
More than 100 million people in Europe suffered from musculoskeletal disorders such as neck and shoulder pain in 2020, a legacy of the ever-changing way we work. But even if you have a sedentary lifestyle, moving regularly even while sitting can prevent problems.
Sedentary, you are warned
Now, there's a new device that can tell if you've been sitting still for too long. The innovation against sedentary behavior consists of sensors powered by piezoelectricity (electricity resulting from pressure and latent heat). It is the creation of Zhengbaoyang at the City University of Hong Kong and his team.
The idea behind the piezoelectric sensor is quite simple. Every time the wearer moves, the sensor sends a charge to a microcontroller that displays this movement on a computer. “We can use this material to convert stress to tension, then we can measure joint motion using that,” Yang says.
The sensor offers a new design within a small package that is ideal for on-body placement.
Jonathan Aitken – University of Sheffield, UK.
A contraption that keeps us alive
The sensor clearly succeeds in its overall goal of indicating inactivity and sedentary style. It will be interesting to delve deeper into its characteristics, reliability and sensitivity.
And the researchers believe the sensor is ready to go.
“We already have a patent on this technology. We are thinking about how to license this patent to local industry, to benefit society,” says Yang.
If some of you think that the “sedentary destroyer” device may be more annoying than useful, it should be noted that it sends an alert only if the wearer moves less than ten times in half an hour. This isn't too hard to achieve and is definitely something all of us who work in front of laptops all day should aim for if we are to avoid health problems.
And if you want to move even less, get ready: you are probably already dead and ignore it.
