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No one is quite sure what the difference is between watching television and driving a car or sitting in front of the computer, but there is definitely some type of difference. Scientists recommend that people limit their television viewing to no more than two hours a day and/or make sure that they are getting up and moving around when they are watching television for longer periods.
One more study, published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine found that for every hour of television that people over the age of 25 watches, it deducts 22 minutes from their life span. This means that if you watch television an average of six hours a day, you can cut five years off of your life expectancy!
Other findings have suggested that watching too much of the boob tube is just as damaging to your health as smoking. Watching television for long periods of time is associated with a loss of life that is comparable to almost all other major chronic disease risk factors, such as obesity.
Television watching has also been shown to have a major impact on your brain chemistry over time. The longer you watch, the easier your brain slips into a receptive, passive mode. This means that messages (such as advertisements) on television are flowing into your brain without any participation from you. This explains why so many advertisements aimed at young children and teens works so well!
READ ALSO: Top 11 Reasons You Need to Watch Less Television
It’s good to note that even a moderate amount of exercise has been demonstrated in numerous studies to add years to your life. The Lancet recently published a study which found that even just 15 minutes of exercise each day could increase a person’s lifespan by three years.
The key here is balance, friends. We aren’t saying that television is an evil product and that you should throw it out. Many programs on television are educational as well as informative. But spending hour after hour watching mindless television programs is slowly killing you and robbing you of a long, healthy life.
Watch that favorite television show, and put the treadmill in front of the set. This way, you can watch your show but still get your body and legs moving.
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Kitsy Hahn
Jan 7, 2016 at 9:31 am
I never got sucked into watching those boring sitcoms with the canned laughter. What I DO do is, turn my TV to one of the calming music (instrumentals) channels and use it as background music while I, um, sit on my butt in front of my desktop computer. 🙂