How Prolonged Standing Can Ruin Your Christmas Shopping
The holiday season is just around the corner. Soon enough, you will be among the throngs of people going to malls and gift shops to buy presents for your love ones. Despite the increasing popularity of online shopping, everyone knows that real world shopping can be more exciting; so prepare yourself for the long queues to the counter and the seemingly endless walking and standing amid countless display racks and shelves.
Truly, Christmas shopping can be a strenuous activity. And what makes it difficult is the prolonged standing that any shopper may be forced to endure. Prolonged standing is actually regarded as an occupational hazard which can cause complications to both muscles and bone tissues on your legs. Therefore, standing for extended periods during your Christmas shopping may pose a severe risk to your body.
A study conducted in Europe provided guidelines on proper standing. It pointed out that people should not stand continuously for more than one hour and that a total of only four hours should be the maximum time that a person should stand in any given day. Doctors and physical therapists emphasize that muscles always need intervals of rest between long hours of pressure caused by efforts like prolonged standing. Constant standing, in the long run, may exhaust the muscles on your legs and may cause chronic pains in those parts.
On its own, prolonged standing will not cause disorders that can threaten your life. But in a microscopic level, standing for long periods of time on almost every occasion may cause your leg veins to malfunction and leak back the blood that they carry. You see, the veins are tasked to carry deoxygenated blood back to your heart where the same blood will be passed on to your lungs to be re-oxygenated. In this cycle, the veins on your legs bear the most burdensome part as they have to contend with body weight and the pull of gravity; and that is not to mention that the veins on your legs are nowhere near your heart!
The human anatomy makes sure that everybody has one-way valves and vein arrangements that prevent blood from rushing back down to the lower limbs. However, due to the pressure exerted via activities like prolonged standing, the valves in your veins may break down and cause blood to pool and swell inside your veins. When this happens you get enlarged veins in your legs.
Basically, enlarged veins are classified into two types, namely; varicose veins and spider veins. The difference between the two is the severity of the swelling; varicose veins tend to bulge on the surface of the skin with a dark bluish or purplish color, while spider veins may appear as red and blue patterns that do not jut out of the skin. It is important to note that these vein enlargements normally do not cause any alarm; more often than not, they pose a threat only to the appearance of one's legs and nothing more. But there are cases where enlarged leg veins may bring tremendous aching and discomfort or even eczema and ulcers on your legs.
Surely, you would not want to risk your overall health for something that you thought was merely a cosmetic problem. In this regard, you are not alone; more than 40% of American women aged 50 years and above have sought to deal with their varicose and spider veins. There are numerous self-care techniques against enlarged veins. You can learn these techniques online or by consulting with your doctor.
You can also use products like Veinuderm to minimize or eradicate the spider veins on your legs. And if you really want to avoid the appearance of varicose veins or spider veins on your legs, you should avoid standing for a prolonged period of time. So the next time you set yourself out shopping for holiday gifts, always remember to be a little kinder to your feet. Visit http://Veinuderm.com/ for more details about having beautiful legs.
Sharon Bell is an avid health and fitness enthusiast and published author. Many of her insightful articles can be found at the premiere online news magazine http://www.healthnfitnesszone.com