Sore From Sitting Too Long? Mix it up!

Hi, everyone.  This is Lara Hammock from the Marble Jar channel and in today's video, I'll share some tips to ensure that your body doesn't ache after a full day of working or studying.  First I'll talk about proper posture, then switching between standing and sitting, and finally some great exercises.

Over the past year, I've gotten really into exercises that promote proper posture.  I'm convinced that collectively our nation's terrible posture is the problem behind most of our over-use injuries and back pain.  I started doing Egoscue exercises -- you can see my video on that if you are interested -- and have made an effort to change my posture and as a result I have eradicated my frequent headaches, gotten back almost full mobility in my arthritic right knee, AND eliminated much of the back pain that I would get from standing for too long.  

Sitting Properly

Here's the bad news -- we are all almost universally sitting at our desks wrong.  Everyone tends to relax into their seated posture, allowing their backs to curve like a C and our heads to jut out beyond our necks.  Look around -- it's an epidemic.  So, how are you supposed to sit?  Like this -- with a curve in your back here and in your neck, shoulders back, head over your shoulders.  Whatever you are looking at -- generally a computer screen -- should be straight in front of you so you don't have to constantly be looking down.  Sitting with proper posture improves almost everything and helps our bodies to function the way they were made to.  Unfortunately, it's not easy.  It takes near constant vigilance and muscle engagement to sit like this.  It's good for your body, but it does requires strength, flexibility, and some effort.  It doesn't sound that fun, does it?  

Now I strongly believe that the benefits outweigh the drawbacks, so I try to sit like this where ever I am.  This is not easy for me on a big sofa -- since I'm right around 5 feet tall.  It requires a couple of pillows behind me or I have to perch on the edge of the sofa.  Sitting is just way less relaxing now.  Which is okay, because actually -- SITTING IS BAD FOR YOU.  We should do it way less than we do.  There was a study that came out a couple of years ago that linked sitting to shortened telomeres (pretty sure I'm pronouncing that wrong).  Telomeres are the ends of our chromosomes that are like the ends of shoestrings.  Having nice, healthy, intact telomeres is essential to ward of dementia and other markers of aging.  What they found was that people who spent more time sitting had shorter telomeres -- this apparently had nothing to do with how much physical exercise they were getting -- just how much they were sitting.  Yikes.  In fact, sitting took EIGHT years off of their age!  So, people who didn't exercise, but spent less time sitting, were biologically speaking, eight years more youthful than those who sat a lot.  So, get up!!!

Stand More

Okay -- I know that most of us don't have the means to buy one of those expensive standing desk contraptions, but I think you can be more creative about how you are working.  Figure out a way to raise up your workspace for standing.  A quick search on Amazon showed some options that were affordable -- anywhere from $80 to $150.  Approximately the cost of 2 physical therapy sessions.  Students spending a ton of time studying should figure out ways to study while standing or while walking.  My main computer is a laptop and I work or study from home, so I have more options than most.  We have a couple of surfaces that are bar height, so I work standing much of the time or, if I'm reading, I bough this contraption for $30 that raises books to a better reading level while standing.  I use some clips and rubber bands to secure books or my iPad for hand-free reading.   This device also works to raise a laptop from a counter height surface to an appropriate standing level.  In other words -- figure out a way to stand as much as you sit -- if not more. 

Exercises

And finally, the way human beings engage with the world these days requires much more looking down than looking up.  Reading, writing, computer work, etc.  We need ways to counteract all of that looking down.  So, take a break occasionally and stare up at the ceiling and then roll your head around a bit to loosen all of those tight muscles -- my neck cracks every time I do this.  A bigger stretch is putting your hands on your lower back and leaning as far back as you can.  Since I'm at home, when I'm studying I alternate between sitting, standing, and reading stomach down on a yoga mat to stretch my back and neck.  My last favorite exercise is this one: find an arm chair, with your feet straight forward and hip width apart, bend forward placing your hands on the chair arm.  Now attempt to get a curve in the spine here -- this will stretch your hamstrings.  Second, attempt to get your ears to go between your arms while making sure your eyes are looking at the chair arm -- no fair looking down for this.  If you do this, you should feel all of the bones in your neck realign -- it's very satisfying.  Hold this for a minute or more.  

So, here are the takeaways from this video: we sit WAY too much and it's aging us.  If you are gonna sit, do it properly, but really try to stand more by mixing up your work environment.  And take breaks to stretch your neck and your back so that you don't hurt all over after a long day at work or studying.  Let me know what you think!  Comments are always appreciated and thanks for watching.