This one thing is killing you even more than all the other things

Sitting will kill you. That’s a scientific fact: a new paper in the Lancet shows that every minute spent sitting on the toilet takes as many as seven minutes off your lifespan. Consider that as you hunker down there, peering at your smartphone!

Homo sapiens used to live to about eight hundred years of age, as incontrovertibally attested to by the cases of Noah and Abraham in the Bible. Anthropological studies attribute their longevity to the following three factors:

1. Shunning of modern killers, such as excessive intake of antioxidants;
2. Avoidance of faddish diets; and (in particular)
3. Squatting.

“Homo sapiens,” explains paleontologist Marie von Standen, “never sat still. It may have been wanderlust, or piles, but he was always on the move. Based on bone density, Homo sapiens might have spent as little as three minutes a day sitting as we know it.”

How did they manage to avoid it?

“They squatted to go to the toilet, squatted near fires, and squatted when waiting on prey to make a move. They were champion squatters,” she replies with a throaty laugh, followed by a leering and meaningful look at this reporter.

***

When we pick up the conversation later, I ask von Standen where she had learned to squat, what Homo sapiens spent the remainder of his day doing, and if bed-style lying was as prevalent then as it is now.

“Absolutely not,” she said, ignoring the first two parts of my multi-faceted question, as she puffed on her cigarette. “Homo sapiens avoided lying down, as it is a known cause of death, knocking on average forty years off the life of an individual.”

How, then, did they sleep?

“Leaning is the safest way to rest,” she explains. “It reduces your life expectancy by only three to four percent, as long as you don’t do it too often.”

How often is too much?

“Well, I wouldn’t advise it for more than an hour or two per day, up to perhaps three hours for pregnant women, men or women who are breastfeeding or widows.”

Why widows? I inquire.

“It’s too complex for non-scientific people to understand. Just trust us.”

Later, Dr von Standen shared with this reporter a pamphlet on the dangers of the deadly vice.

***

Ten-Step Guide to Safe Leaning, issued by Dr von Standen’s Institute for Medical Things.

1. No more than three minutes at a time.
2. Leaning should be front or back only, and against firm and level surfaces at hip height, or alternatively at the height of an elbow.
3. Where possible, patients should go to the toilet in a leaning position rather than either standing or sitting.
4. The chest should not be used to rest against, as this can cause shortness of breath, leading to pulmonary complications and death.
5. Research cautions strongly against sideleaning, which is “even worse than sitting.” Extended periods of sideleaning can cause the hip to pop out of its joint, or other complications, such as shortened lifespan (vs front-or-back leaners) and spontaneous fracturing of the cocyx. Dr von Standen notes that whilst medication can be taken for joint pain, she cautions that it further shortens lifespan. However, she observes that patients suffering joint pain who do not take medication can suffer isolation and loneliness, as “they go on and on about the pain. Like, seriously, all of the fucking time.”
6. Sitting is of course worse than leaning, but worst of all is lying down, where bedsores, rampant laziness and being eaten alive by rats burrowing up through the mattress are amongst the least of one’s worries, according to the experts. Standing is best, although prolonged standing damages the knee joints and causes muscular atrophy.
7. So-called ‘experts’ recommending walking or running should be regarded with suspicion: medical professionals have long been concerned about the effects of chronic fatigue, wear in ligaments and tendons, chafing, persistent inflammation of sacs, ritual humiliation and blindness of the eyes and ears, and nagging rumours and suspicions.
8. Kneeling is bandied about by ‘alternative’ or ‘Eastern’ medical practitioners and shamans as an option for those concerned about the health risks of prolonged standing, sitting or lying down. Do not be taken in by the exotic words and nonsense terms used by these quacks and religious extremists, Dr von Standen advises. Kneeling is associated with hallucinations, belief in deities, housemaid’s knee, bunions, fluid on the knee (although this could be related to poor bladder control), and pleurasy or pluracy.
9. Moderate gentle exercise, in the form of tai chi, yoga, or geriatric sexual orgies, offers occasional relief from leaning, allowing the bodily humors to realign, and takes pressure off stressed ankle sockets, which can become stiff from prolonged leaning.
10. Swimming is recommended as easiest on the body’s joints in the long-term, although in addition to chronic risk of drowning or accidental death by blue whale swallowing, toxin infiltration through cutaneous interaction (including seasalts, skin damage, foreign bodies, weevils, sealeeches and bloating), there is a latent danger of lowering bone density. This causes fragility, osteoporosis, spontaneous multiple rupturing of femur and tibula bones leading to blood poisoning and other complications, and an inability to dive below the surface due to inadequately dense body parts.

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Benny Neylon writes words. Those words have been splattered all over the internet and just won’t come off. Benny Neylon is currently alive in Barcelona. He is currently the author of NSA and the Holiest Bible, Ever (Vol I). Benny Neylon cares, and because he cares, the world is a better place. More on that at westclarewriters.com.