Anyone who works in the office is spending more than half of their life sitting. Day after day, week after week, years and decades go by and we realize we’ve spent most of our life in a position we were never meant to. Hence, poor posture, back problems, you name it.
But it’s far from the only common thing that’s silently and slowly doing more harm than good. “What common everyday things are slowly killing us?” someone posed a question on Ask Reddit, and the eye-opening responses started flooding in.
One by one, people shared things that we all take for granted although they may be destroying us in ways we never think about.
#1
Mental health
Image source: lasso-the-moon, Alex Green
#2
Hot dogs in packs of 10 and buns in packs of 8. I don’t know how much longer I can take it.
Image source: dlordjr, Mr.TinMD
#3
Plastic everything. We cook in it, store foods, and even breathe it. Carcinogens? They’re in the plastic.
Image source: QQSolomonn, Katerina Holmes
#4
Sitting all day long.
Image source: hadespersephone, Ivan Samkov
#5
Cats. Their scratches may seem small, but eventually, it will build up and they will take over us and become the master race and dogs will have to fight back, but since cats are mischievous and have planned this for millennia, they will prevail over dogs. Then its only due time for them to overthrow the birds, reptiles and all other animals. I dunno, just a hunch
Image source: anon, aoshima_cat
#6
Suffering from any form of anxiety and negative thoughts.
Image source: igkoz1, Liza Summer
#7
Remembering embarassing moments from years ago
Image source: BirdInTheCup, Hurrah suhail
#8
Ibuprofen – kidneys, Tylenol-liver. If I make it to my 90s without significant damage to these organs, I’ll consider myself superwoman.
Image source: leojaccebssen, Mike Mozart
#9
bacon is a category one known carcinogen but the meat industry in america works tirelessly to make sure the fda doesnt say anything bad about them.
Image source: anon, Polina Tankilevitch
#10
polluted air
Image source: laikpa, Janak Bhatta
#11
Sugar.
Image source: 0pportunistic, Andres Ayrton
#12
Living. Health is just the slowest possible rate at which you can die.
Image source: StarChaser_Tyger, Andrea Piacquadio
#13
Using your cellphone at night without night shift on. Blue light suppresses melatonin levels, which causes sleep deprivation (weight gain, depression, anxiety) and increases the risk of cancer. Reddit being the exception, of course.
Image source: mrnicetallguy, SHVETS production
#14
Drinking soda
Image source: BrokeBoiJaden, Leah Kelley
#15
Everything that is pleasurable, tastes good, makes your life better in any way, or otherwise discourages you from suckstarting a shotgun.
Living a long and healthy life means a life not worth living.
Image source: polarisdelta, Edu Carvalho
#16
A typical American food diet combined with passive entertainment is the most common thing (https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/282929.php).
Image source: anon, Tim Samuel
#17
Work. It kills our will to live slowly one day at a time.
Image source: TandemBeast, Mizuno K
#18
White flour, high fructose corn syrup and other sugars, processed food and preservatives.
Image source: anon, Klaus Nielsen
#19
Lack of exercise
Image source: joppies, Pixabay
#20
Our own cells. They’re constantly dividing and reproducing, shortening our telomeres if we’re lucky, mutating into cancer if we’re not.
Looking on the bright side, if they didn’t do that, we’d die a lot faster.
Image source: MedusasSexyLegHair, turek
#21
Toxic relationships
Image source: biglaughsplease
#22
My kids.
Image source: AusCan531, RODNAE Productions
#23
Cell phone addiction
… oh the irony
Image source: thebigloafer, Ketut Subiyanto
#24
Your lack of routine. Regularly staying up past midnight leaves your brain less time that it desperately needs to rest and repair itself, the strain can and will eventually catch up to you. Go to bed you crazies!
Edit: You guys seem curious about this so I’ll go a bit more in-depth.
Your body functions like a machine, when it’s not being used it performs maintenance. Your body naturally repairs itself while you sleep. Also, your body has certain internal clocks to indicate when the process should start.
One of them is a light indicator. Blue light is one of the most powerful light in the spectrum, and when your eyes absorb this blue light, your brain is able to decide if it is daytime or night time. However, blue light is emitted by other things (SUCH AS COMPUTER SCREENS). If enough blue lights is filtered through your eyes, your brain will think that it is still daytime when it is night you should be getting rest, that’s why Apple has the night shift feature on its phones and computers.
The most important part of this isn’t always how much you sleep, but you sleeping at the same time everyday. Your brain adapts around when you set a routine. If you have a routine in place, your brain is able to recognize that you are asleep and bring about repairs sooner and faster. If you don’t have a routine it regularly will take your brain to realize that you are asleep and repairs slow.
tl;dr- Your body needs routine to be able to recognize when to heal
Image source: LyfeTrippin, Ron Lach
#25
Too much coffee. Stimulants like caffeine, in excess (more than 3 cups a day) ever so slowly f**k up the heart.
Image source: Hank–Moody, Lisa Fotios
#26
Car exhaust. I very seriously believe that my children will look at me when i tell them we used to have tens-of-thousands of cars in cities, the way I looked at my mom when she explained that smoking around pregnant women were totally normal.
Image source: Areumert, Life Of Pix
#27
Ozone pollution. recent new studies show living in a city is like smoking a pack or more of cigarettes a day…
Image source: ShackintheWood, Craig Adderley
#28
Cigarettes
Image source: anon
#29
Fast food.
Image source: TG316
#30
Brain power it takes to figure out what paper towels to buy. How the hell can I choose the best option? 6=8? 8=12? There go more brane sells!
Image source: Well_thatwas_random
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