For most of his life, my colleague Dan Coise, a senior writer at Slate,

enjoyed a common pastime.

Sitting, like as in the opposite of standing. I would say I was very pro-sitting.

I would sit and read, I would sit and write, I would sit and read and write I would sit and do nothing I was a highly qualified

enthusiastic sitter Dan has a place he likes to sit when it's cold we have a very nice chair right

by our fireplace. That's my winter seat.

There's a record player in there. He has a place he likes to sit when it's balmy.

We have a porch on our house. I basically spend all my time sitting in those glider chairs that just gently ease back and forth. Like that's my habitat.

But about a decade ago, Dan started to hear some ominous rumblings about his hobby.

Americans are sitting way too long. On average, they sit about 9 to 10 hours a day.

Do you have sitting disease? That's a term given to a collection of ailments.

The researchers starting to connect with the long stretches of sitting common in the

office place. Some doctors warn that sitting all day can lead to obesity, diabetes, heart disease and even cancer.

Studies have found that people who sit for too long have a hundred and forty-seven percent higher risk of suffering a heart attack or stroke

a hundred and twelve percent risk of developing diabetes and that physical

inactivity is associated with 3.2 million deaths around the world every year.

The main one I remember was that when you're sitting, you burn one calorie a minute.

And I remember thinking I definitely consume more than an average

of a calorie a minute.

As Dan was hearing these dire statistics in the news, he got a phone call from an editor

in a magazine with a funny idea for a story he wanted Dan to write.

The funny idea for the story was that I would not sit for an entire month. Like as a extreme health experiment, I would follow the science and if a little standing was good for you, obviously a lot of standing must be really good for you,

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